Tree work incident report 17CA004: struck while felling a fire-damaged oak, California
What California's FACE report 17CA004 says about a feller struck on April 6, 2017 when a cut spar of a fire-damaged oak fell onto a bucket truck.
Checked against the sources at the bottom of this page on October 8, 2026. Rules, fees and pay change: the source has the last word.
This page reports what the official source says. It is not legal advice: ask the office named here. This page restates one official fatality report in our own words: case 17CA004 from the California Department of Public Health's Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation program, dated September 5, 2018. It covers a tree feller killed on April 6, 2017 while removing a fire-damaged oak from a bucket truck. No one is named here or in the report. The table of every report we read is in the official case library for tree work incidents.
The project
After a fire burned 70,000 acres in the Sierra foothills in 2015, a county received federal emergency funding to remove 8,000 roadside hazard trees. The work began in late 2016. One local subcontractor, a firm formed in January 2017 for tree felling, ended up with the work, with 25 employees in six crews. The oak stood 80 to 90 feet tall below a county road along the bank of a creek ravine. It had fire damage and a large cavity at the base of the trunk, and it leaned away from the road, which limited the reach of the 55 foot bucket truck. The crew was told not to fell trees into the ravine because of environmental and cultural concerns.
What happened
At a 7:30 a.m. briefing the general contractor's regional manager and the crew supervisor agreed a plan to piece the tree down in sections from a crotch 50 feet above the road. They left at 7:45 a.m. The crew followed the plan until 11 a.m., when the feller decided to bring the upper two thirds down in two large spars. The report says the crew did not check in with the manager or the subcontractor's foreman first, although contact was possible by driving 7 minutes up the road or climbing out of the ravine.
The crew tied a rigging line around each spar and ran it through a pulley to a mini-excavator on the road. The first spar fell into the ravine instead of onto the road. The feller made the cuts for the second spar, then moved the bucket beside the truck, lowered it to 8 feet above the ground with the boom folded back. The spar started to move as intended, then changed direction and fell at a right angle to the rigging line, hit the raised boom, slid down it and struck the feller, who was thrown out of the bucket and hung from his harness. Coworkers unclipped him and began CPR. He was pronounced dead at 12:11 p.m. The death certificate gives blunt impact injuries of the head and torso.
What the report recommends
The report recommends that tree-felling contractors make sure each crew includes, and is led by, a person with substantial felling experience. It recommends that all supervisors hold a felling safety certification from an organization such as the Tree Care Industry Association or the International Society of Arboriculture, and that agencies and utilities write that into bid language. It also recommends that crews can always reach their supervisor and emergency services, with a satellite phone where cell coverage is unreliable. The report notes the supervisor was not certified and that the plan had been changed on earlier occasions too. For lift rules see the guide to bucket trucks and elevated work platforms.
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