Davey Tree Flipbooks

21 November/December 2023 | THE DAVEY BULLETIN The McDougall Creek Wildfire caused the evacuation of more than 10,000 residents in West Kelowna, British Columbia over three days. The Davey Tree Expert Co. of Canada, Limited's Matt Edge, district manager, Kelowna Residential office, responded to the Central Okanagan Regional District Emergency Operations' request for assistance by bringing in a Davey Resource Group (DRG) Canada team to survey the affected trees for three days in late August. The DRG Canada team of consulting arborists, led by Peter Rennie, included Kimberley Dahl, Connor Gritter, and Minnie Leung. "We walked through the affected neighborhoods, assessing trees," Dahl said. "We were looking for exposed roots that had been burnt, any trees measuring 15 centimeters in CANADA TEAMS RESPOND TO WEST KELOWNA WILDFIRE diameter at breast height or less that had a canopy above two meters, and any tree with cross-sectional burn damage greater than 50%, as well as considering compounding non-fire related deficiencies." Edge said everyone in his office was personally affected by the wildfire. Some were evacuated from their homes for more than a week. The local state of emergency ended Oct. 10 after nearly two months. By late October, residents of West Kelowna started turning their focus from structural property damage to requesting tree work. Edge said the cleanup work will be ongoing for many months. "The most important thing is that we helped our community. They were relying on us to work quickly so they could return home as soon as possible," Edge said. Far left: "Some properties completely burned down, while others weren't affected," said Matt Edge, district manager, Kelowna office. The wildfire caused major infrastructure damage to power lines and water sources. Left: Axel St. Jean, foreman, Kelowna Residential office, works to remove a Douglas fir in West Kelowna compromised by the fire. Kelowna office employees who supported the wildfire response were Hunter Beckett, Alassa Johnson, John-Pryce Jones, Aidan Mcleod, and Lucas St. Onge. Zach Young, business manager, Commercial Landscape Services, heard from client City of Toledo with a request for help in the aftermath of an EF-2 tornado that left Detwiler Park Golf Course in Toledo, Ohio closed for two weeks due to flooding, downed trees, and scattered branches. "Within 24 hours of the storm hitting, we were able to send a proposal to the city to get the work underway," Young said. Young worked with Lee Jordan, operations manager, Eastern Utility services, to bring in crews to assist from the Butler Rural Electric Cooperative, Inc. account, including Lermin Castano, trimmer; Michel Fernandez, foreman; Adeivy Garcia, trimmer; Yunior Mantilla, trimmer; Ronni Santana, trimmer; Manuel Torres, general foreman; Yunior Mantilla, trimmer; Yoe Michel, trimmer; and Idalberto Yanes, foreman. "The golf course is right along the shoreline of Lake Erie and the floodwater had nowhere to go. It was a mess. It was too wet to use equipment, everything had to be done manually at that point. The crews did an excellent job there in difficult conditions," Jordan said. After the flooding subsided, crews from the City of Cuyahoga Falls spent four days removing large hazardous trees. They included Mike Ashe, CLS, EASTERN UTILITY TEAM UP ON TORNADO RECOVERY A tornado damaged trees throughout the Detwiler Park Golf Course in Toledo, Ohio. general foreman; Tyler Ashe, trimmer; Cole Daugherty, trimmer; Jason Jarett, foreman; and Richard Pauley, trimmer. PERSEVERANCE

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