What is the US Forest Service Training and who needs it?
Northeast Woodland Training Instructors are Certified US Forest Service Training Consultants. We are A, B, and C-Evaluators.
Our “Developing a Thinking Sawyer” training will be our Levels 1&2 that have been slightly modified to meet specific US Forest Service qualifications, and a third day for field proficiency evaluation using the FS Evaluation Form. Meeting the requirements of this course will earn the participant the certification needed to work on FS lands, as well as receiving a Game of Logging Level 1 & 2 Certification.
The United States Forest Service (USFS) has had a long-standing Saw Program that provides direction on qualification requirements, as well as training, evaluation, and certification standards for Forest Service employees, volunteers, volunteer partner groups, and cooperator organizations using saws under an agreement on National Forest Service, (NFS) lands.
Up until 10 years ago, their requirements and techniques were quite different from Soren Eriksson’s Game of Logging’s chainsaw techniques. The Forest Service, having seen more and more sawyers using GOL techniques out west, asked David Birdsall of Northeast Woodland Training and Tim Ard of Forest Applications Inc. to join the USFS National Chainsaw Technical Advisory Group (TAG) to demonstrate the GOL techniques. After that session, David Birdsall joined the TAG for a week of trainings for four summers.
The USFS saw the benefits of GOL’s tree felling techniques and training system. The US Forest Service is not a Game of Logging training organization – yet from the Game of Logging curriculum, they created OHLEC – Objective, Hazards, Leans, Escape Route, Cutting Plan. Their training is called OHLEC, or DTS: Developing a Thinking Sawyer.
Who needs this USFS classification training? As stated above, Forest Service employees, volunteers for the USFS, volunteer partner groups, and cooperator organizations using saws on National Forest Service lands.