Jacob BarrettViews:
An hour’s time compressed into a matter of seconds. This skid steer is one of the land management team’s most versitile pieces of equipment. It also becomes our most dirty piece of equipment, too. As with all of our tools regular maintenance is a must. Mulching vegetation sends leaves and twigs flying all over and some of those land on this machine, which gets very hot. The heat that is put out can easily ignite dried plant matter and turn a year’s progress upside down. (We prefer to save the fire part till later stages of the restoration process.)
We are able to use this tool to repair washed out roads, rehab degraded fireline, and most importantly construct minimally invasive fireline. By using the mulcher to chew up shrubs/small trees, we are able use a hay rake to sweep away the chewed fuels from the mulcher’s path. This keeps existing groundcover intact with minimal disturbance.
