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Wildfire Salvage Logging

Increasingly intense fires are taking a toll on California’s working forests. Area contractors are adapting to the immediate requirements while thinking about the long term.

— Jorge Victoria

Burnt timber stand
Loggers in California have grown accustomed to wildfires. In its Wildfire Activity Statistics, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) reported 7,641 wildfires in 2022 alone. Over the last five years, the state has seen over two million acres burned annually. And the problem does not seem to be improving.

When we visited Doug Stoy from D.L. Stoy Logging Co., he and his crew were working in Lassen County, California on a salvage clean-up after the Dixie fire. This 1,700 acre tract of burnt timber represented just a small fraction of the devastation caused by the Dixie fire. It burned 963,309 acres of federal, state, and private lands in Butte, Plumas, Lassen, Tehama, and Shasta counties before it was contained on October 25, 2021. It had an estimate cost of $1.15 billion and was the largest single (noncomplex) wildfire in California’s recorded history.

Doug Stoy, owner of D.L. Stoy Logging Co.
Doug Stoy, owner of D.L. Stoy Logging Co.

Resilient logger

"Obviously down the road that’s going to affect us a lot," says Doug. "Short term, we’re super busy. There’s no end to the wood. We’re just going as fast as we can. But long term, I worry about sitting here in a million-acre plantation picking and plucking what’s left. So yeah, these fires are just too big, particularly in California. I mean, a million acre fire, that’s just ridiculous. We can’t have that, that’s just too much. The timber’s going to be rotten before we can harvest it all," he adds with obvious concern. The Dixie fire also affected Doug personally. It burned his hometown of Greenville in its entirety, including his new house and everything he owned. Resilience is something Doug can talk to you about.

Doug has an inner fire that pushes him ahead for success. “My dad was a truck driver. He drove trucks for other logging companies, and of course, I grew up around it.” After working in the industry for close to ten years, Doug decided he wanted to do things his way. “I just felt like I was ready to take a step and go out on my own and just do it the way I wanted to.” So, in 2005, D.L. Stoy Logging Co. was born. Based out of Quincy, California, Doug is the sole owner. Today, the company has fifteen employees and ten subcontractors.
Clint Pearson, timber faller at D.L. Stoy
Clint Pearson, timber faller at D.L. Stoy Logging, hand falls oversized trees to be later processed by the Tigercat LH855E.
Talking to Doug for five minutes is enough to see what he's made of. He is knowledgeable and determined and the kind of leader who wouldn’t ask his employees to do something he wouldn’t do himself. Despite running a large operation that involves multiple machines and people, Doug is still out there everyday overseeing the operation. "I load logs and build roads. I was just running a dozer and skidding when you guys showed up. I’m here working every day too, and we’re just so short-handed, I have to be."

Although Doug has been very successful in growing the company, he attributes much of the achievement to his employees. "A lot of it is really some quality operators and guys that I brought with me throughout the years. I’ve had some really good, hard-working, talented operators. That’s all the difference in the world now. These machines can do the work, but you’ve got to have somebody talented enough to run them. They’re a little more technical than when I started," Doug emphasizes. "I have a core group of seven, eight guys that have been with me for a long time. That’s really the base of the company and then we try to build around those guys and add to it."


I THINK WITH TIGERCAT YOU JUST KNOW THAT YOU’RE GETTING THE VERY TOP QUALITY OF WHATEVER PARTICULAR PIECE OF EQUIPMENT YOU’RE LOOKING FOR. INDUSTRY WIDE, TIGERCAT HAS A PRETTY GOOD REPUTATION FOR BEING A SOLID MACHINE.


— Doug Stoy

D.L. Stoy has a contract with Sierra Pacific, delivering 30 to 40 loads a day to five different sawmills in northeastern California. Doug says that trucking capacity has been a limiting factor. "We need to be in the thirties every day. That’s kind of our normal production. We do about 25 million board feet a year." The company harvests multiple species including ponderosa pine, sugar pine, white fir, Douglas fir and cedar. “Sorting is a big deal when you’re shipping ten different sorts to five different sawmills. It’s a constant struggle trying to get all the logs where they need to go."
LH855E processes burnt logs
The LH855E processes burnt logs near the bottom of the hill. Processing the logs at the stump is critical because there is very little organic material remaining on the ground after a fire.

Tigercat LH855E

Doug believes Tigercat is the most well-built logging machine brand there is. “I think with Tigercat you just know that you’re getting the very top quality of whatever particular piece of equipment you’re looking for. Industry wide, Tigercat has a pretty good reputation for being a solid machine. I feel like they lead the industry and particularly the feller buncher market. It’s unbelievable, the difference in operator comfort, speed and strength. They’re just really, really nice machines.”

In March 2022 Doug purchased an LH855E harvester equipped with a Tigercat 568 harvesting head. As of March 2023, the machine had approximately 1,960 hours on the meter. Aaron White, the operator, likes the carrier and head. “The last machine he was on didn’t level. It was just a road builder package for the processor head, and so the steep ground really slowed him down. With this one, right away we saw a tremendous upswing in production. I think the machine and the head are a little faster, a little stronger, but a lot of it is just operator comfort. When he’s on a steep slope, he’s sitting up there level instead of hanging off the side of the hill trying to process wood. It’s a great machine operating on steep ground,” says Doug.

WE’LL DEFINITELY BUY MORE TIGERCAT MACHINES IN THE FUTURE NOW THAT BEJAC IS ON BOARD SELLING THEM AND SERVICING THEM. IT’S JUST A MATTER OF BUILDING THAT RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR DEALERSHIP TO KNOW THAT THEY’RE GOING TO BE HERE AND KEEP YOU RUNNING.


The harvester generally follows the feller buncher, delimbing at the stump to keep limbs and tops in the bush, rather than at roadside. This is critical in the burnt stands because there is very little organic material remaining on the ground after a fire.

A lot of oversize trees are encountered in this part of California. Generally, these are handfalled and the first log is bucked manually. The LH855E finishes the job. The processed logs will then be transported to roadside with a skidder, ready to load on a truck.
Group photo of logging crew
(L-R) Kushiah McCullough (Tigercat factory representative), Doug Stoy (owner of D.L. Stoy Logging Co.), Aaron White (machine operator), Steve Wilson (Bejac’s product support representative).
Doug says that the support from Tigercat factory representative, Kushiah McCullough and Tigercat harvesting head specialist, Blain MacDonald has been crucial. “When we first bought this machine, they were here for two days, and really helped to set it up and train the operator. That was definitely a big help. It would have been quite a learning curve for us to just take that machine and learn it ourselves.”

Doug is hopeful he will keep adding Tigercat equipment to his fleet. “We’ll definitely buy more Tigercat machines in the future now that Bejac is on board selling and servicing them. That’s a big difference for me – that I trust them. It’s just a matter of building that relationship with your dealership to know that they’re going to be here and keep you running.”

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