S-212 Chainsaw Felling Course at Radnor Lake Session #2 (February 20th thru 23rd, 2018)
A four day S-212 chainsaw operations course was recently held on February 20th thru 23rd at Radnor Lake State Natural Area for Tennessee State Parks, Tennessee Division of Natural Areas and Tennessee Division of Forestry Personnel. This was the second session of two four day training certification classes being offered this year and hosted by Friends of Radnor Lake this year! This training builds upon a previous training held at Radnor Lake on February 13th thru 16th ensuring that all of our Radnor Lake Ranger Staff are felling certified and is part of our resource management goals for the natural area.
This course and a variety of courses are developed by the National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG) headquartered in Boise, Idaho which partners with agencies across the nation both federal, state, and local to respond to unplanned but expected incidents such as wildfire, storms, floods, as well as daily duties of fire, forestry, park, wildlife, and other agencies.
The training and skills covered in this S-212 chainsaw operation course are important to a number of activities at Radnor Lake State Natural Area, especially trail development and maintenance which require a lot of cutting of both down and standing trees and brush on an annual basis. Participants of these courses are also taught an emergency medical response review of responding to medical emergencies frequently associated with chainsaw injuries.
Simultaneously the cutting and control of invasive-exotic invasive trees and plants is a high priority at Radnor Lake as these species multiply rapidly and outcompete the native desirable vegetation. Some of the native trees to be helped and restored from the removal of invasive-exotic plants during this 4 day training were formerly more common to the area like walnut, white and red oaks, poplar (the state tree). This course is taught primarily in the Hall Farm portion of Radnor Lake which is the centerpiece of our current native grasslands restoration efforts as well in our efforts to restore 40+ acres of native grasslands back to the natural area to sustain ground nesting bird habitat and butterfly species dependent upon these areas for survival.
Most importantly, this training raises the skill, efficiency and safety levels for all chainsaw operators working on Tennessee State Forests, Tennessee State Parks and Tennessee State Natural Areas.
This second session 4-day training was made possible thanks to the partnership between Friends of Radnor Lake, Tennessee Division of Forestry, Tennessee Division of Natural Areas and Tennessee State Parks with 11 participants from TDF, TDNA and TSP receiving this training from Instructor Mike Huddleston (consulting forester / retired tn division of forestry).
Special thanks to Mike Huddleston (Instructor), Robin Bible (Tennessee Division of Forestry), Jeff Piatt (Tennessee Division of Forestry), Shane Petty(Tennessee State Parks), Lori Jett (Tennessee State Parks), Gretchen Pritchett (Friends of Radnor Lake), Park Manager Chris Cole (Standing Stone State Park Manager/EMT-P), Lyndy Maness and the park staff at Radnor Lake for all of their help to make this training possible.
All of the participants and the park staff over both of these training sessions would like to pass along their thanks to Friends of Radnor Lake for their behind the scenes support of this training and hospitality over these last two weeks!