Improving safety and productivity in firewood harvesting from coppices.

Despite the introduction of safe mechanised methods in Italy, in forest utilization and especially in coppice harvesting the risk of injuries for the operators is still high. In Italy coppice are mainly harvested to produce firewood and risks are mainly due to the use of chainsaws in felling and processing and also to the operations of wood extraction, loading and transport from forest to the further processing industries. The traditional working method is based on the cut to length systems and the harvesting cycle begins with motor-manual felling and ends when firewood is loaded onto truck. The wood extraction may be carried out, depending on slope and accessibility by animals, chute, tractor and trailer and tractor with bins. After extraction firewood is manually loaded onto trucks by two or three operators standing on the truck while a loader lifts the firewood to be stacked. This work phase is one of the most dangerous of the whole process and the risk to slip or to fall is very high. This study analyses the use of a firewood baler at the landing and the advantages, in terms of safety, of using a loader to load bales onto trucks. The firewood baler is mounted on three-point hitch of a tractor and the compaction is carried out by two couples of mobile arm pushed down by hydraulic cylinders. After compaction the bales are fastened with twine or iron wire. This method is also compared to the traditional use of tractor with bins in terms of productivity.