NINE MILE FALLS, WASHINGTON – A forest fire is rapidly spreading. Who are you going to call?

Adam Swedberg is one of those people you call. His business, Swedberg Contracting, provides timber fallers who fall hazard trees on wildland fires and emergency incidents.

In 2024 Swedberg’s company supplied timber fallers to work in Virginia on wildfires in early March, and throughout the fire season in New Mexico, Wyoming, Colorado, California, Idaho, Montana, Washington and Oregon. “Then we sent guys to work on the hurricane recovery in North Carolina,” said Swedberg, after hurricane Helene struck portions of the state in late September.

Swedberg, 39, grew up in Loomis in north-central Washington, not far from Canada, and began working in logging when he was 20. He has a well-rounded education in logging. He started working for a logging business that was owned by the father of a friend. Swedberg operated a stroke boom delimber for a while, moved to a skidder, and then started cutting by hand. He continued working for the contractor until he started his own business.

He went into business for himself in 2008. He hired another man and they did pre-commercial thinning and fuels reduction cutting, using a chipper. He got his first contract to cut on fires in 2017. “Falling timber has been the most interesting to me out of all the jobs,” said Swedberg. “Of all the jobs I’ve done…it was what I enjoyed the most.”

“There’s not a lot of that in eastern Washington,” he added, “not a lot of consistent demand for timber fallers.” He seized on the opportunity to provide timber fallers to work on fires – wherever they occurred.

Some of the hazardous forest conditions faced by timber fallers for Swedberg Contracting.

His business is based in Nine Mile Falls, which is just northwest of Spokane. He has only three full-time employees, but during fire season he may staff up to 50.

The work his company does during fire season is nearly all falling timber by hand. “The guys that work for me during fires and emergencies are almost all working with saws,” said Swedberg. “They are timber fallers by trade.”

Swedberg’s company contracts to the U.S. Forest Service or other federal, state, or tribal land management agencies. “Though we have worked with almost all the federal land management agencies and a majority of the state agencies in the West, the majority of our work is for the Forest Service.” Those agencies pay his business a flat daily rate – either for a single faller or two working together, called a module.

“It really depends on the fire,” said Swedberg, although the timber fallers normally are there to take down hazard trees to make it safer for other crews.

“Generally the fallers are cutting before or after the fire has passed, cutting snags and hazardous trees that can reach roads or fire lines or around other assets they want to protect. They cut the snags out and then do a back burn and have the fallers go back through and find any other trees that were weakened by the fire.”

Sometimes the lead fire agency has other work for the fallers to do. “I’ve worked on fires that were more of a logging job. They had us cutting oversize trees and bucking them, or even bucking logs that were pushed over by the buncher, and the skidder couldn’t pull them.”

The fallers who went to North Carolina after hurricane Helene – they drove across the country from the Northwest – helped to open up roads with fallen trees, bucking them so they could be removed, and also felled damaged, hazard trees. “They even had days when there were no machines, so they were cutting them into small enough pieces to move them by hand.”

Once on the scene, Swedberg Contracting fallers are working for the management team that is assigned to the fire or that area of the fire.The agency managing the fire provides the fallers with meals, drinks, and usually a place to camp. If there is no place to camp, the fallers are paid a per diem for lodging and meals and travel expenses.

Because of the nature of his business, Swedberg may get a call any time, day or night, for an agency needing fallers. He has a network of contract fallers he can summon. “Generally I answer the phone and call whoever is closest and available.”

Accordingly, Swedberg spends a lot of time on the phone, especially during fire season – responding to calls, coordinating the deployment of contract fallers, etc. Even during the off-season he is busy. “I’m getting ready for the next fire season, recruiting, and doing paperwork. Since I talk to so many guys, many will call me and ask who’s working or if I have heard of any work.

Swedberg has developed and built up a solid network of timber fallers he can call on. One thing that sets him apart from similar businesses, he said, is recruiting timber fallers. “Most of the guys that work for us live in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana. We have some others scattered around the country.”

Fire season usually begins in July and lasts for a few months. “But every year is different,” said Swedberg. Last year he got his first fire call in March. “I’ve had guys work all the way to the week before Christmas…The most days I’ve had anyone get in one year out on fires is 157, but I consider anything over 45 days a pretty good year.”

The land management agencies pay Swedberg, and he pays his fallers every two weeks. That distinguishes him from other similar contractors, he said. “Most other people don’t pay their fallers until they get paid,” he noted. “If you’re on a fire for 14 days, and typically the soonest the contractor is getting paid is 25 to 30 days, that can be a long time before they get paid. I’ve gone as long as 124 days without getting paid for a fire. I don’t think it’s the employees’ responsibility to carry the business expense.” Swedberg also pays workers compensation insurance for the fallers who work for him.

His full-time employees were still doing fuels reduction work until a few years ago. Now, when it’s not fire season, they do a mix of jobs – working for private landowners, masticating brush and small trees for the Forest Service or some other agency, and even contract cutting now and then.

The crew is equipped with two machines, a LinkBelt 145X with a new Quadco mulching head that he bought from Triad Machinery, and a Kobelco 210 with an AFE disc mulching head. The LinkBelt-Quadco combination replaced a TimberPro feller buncher with a Denis Cimaf mulching attachment that Swedberg recently sold. He was attracted to the Quadco drum-style attachment because it has a lateral tilt to improve production and handling of ground material. “I think that was the biggest selling point for me.”

Swedberg also owns a small equipment rental business, Lake Spokane Rentals. The business rents skid steers, mini-excavators, and similar machines and attachments mainly for the homeowner market.

His business model is a good fit for his lifestyle. Swedberg is a single parent with full custody of his two children, ages 5 and 10. The fact that he can operate his business basically from a telephone and does not need to be in the woods doing forestry work enables him to be there for his children.

(Any loggers interested in contacting Swedberg can reach him through his company website, www.Swedbergcontracting.com, email admin@swedbergcontracting.com, or call (509) 601-0988.)