Clear brush from work areas and escape routes, and cut saplings and other trees from direction of falls, using axes, chainsaws, or bulldozers.

“Clear brush from work areas and escape routes, and cut saplings and other trees from direction of falls, using axes, chainsaws, or bulldozers.” is a core task performed by Fallers. Among the occupation's 19 rated tasks, workers place it 16th by importance (#4 most important). About 98% of workers say it is relevant to their job.

This is a single occupation-specific task statement from O*NET. The figures below describe how central the task is to the job and what independent studies measure about AI and this kind of work — not a prediction that the task will be automated.

Work activities this task rolls up to

O*NET groups concrete tasks into broader work activities shared across many occupations.

• Cut trees or other vegetation. in Handling and Moving Objects
• Operate agricultural or forestry equipment. in Controlling Machines and Processes

AI exposure

The OpenAI / Eloundou “GPTs are GPTs” study rates this task E0. No direct exposure — current language models give little or no time savings on this task.

Exposure measures whether a model could meaningfully speed the task up — it is an estimate of overlap with model capabilities, not a measure of whether the work will be done by software. The study's intermediate score (β) for this task is 0.00. Automation potential label: T0.

Other tasks in this occupation

• Stop saw engines, pull cutting bars from cuts, and run to safety as tree falls. · importance 4.7
• Appraise trees for certain characteristics, such as twist, rot, and heavy limb growth, and gauge amount and direction of lean, to determine how to control the direction of a tree's fall with the least damage. · importance 4.7
• Saw back-cuts, leaving sufficient sound wood to control direction of fall. · importance 4.6
• Measure felled trees and cut them into specified log lengths, using chain saws and axes. · importance 4.5
• Assess logs after cutting to ensure that the quality and length are correct. · importance 4.5
• Determine position, direction, and depth of cuts to be made, and placement of wedges or jacks. · importance 4.4
• Control the direction of a tree's fall by scoring cutting lines with axes, sawing undercuts along scored lines with chainsaws, knocking slabs from cuts with single-bit axes, and driving wedges. · importance 4.4
• Trim off the tops and limbs of trees, using chainsaws, delimbers, or axes. · importance 4.3
• Select trees to be cut down, assessing factors such as site, terrain, and weather conditions before beginning work. · importance 4.3
• Maintain and repair chainsaws and other equipment, cleaning, oiling, and greasing equipment, and sharpening equipment properly. · importance 4.3
• Insert jacks or drive wedges behind saws to prevent binding of saws and to start trees falling. · importance 4.2
• Tag unsafe trees with high-visibility ribbons. · importance 4.2
• Secure steel cables or chains to logs for dragging by tractors or for pulling by cable yarding systems. · importance 3.9
• Load logs or wood onto trucks, trailers, or railroad cars, by hand or using loaders or winches. · importance 3.9

See all tasks on the Fallers page.

Sources for this page

Every figure above traces to a named public dataset and the exact release below — not hand-written opinion. See the full methodology for what each measure does and does not mean.

• O*NET 30.3 U.S. Department of Labor / National Center for O*NET Development
• “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130 OpenAI / academic

Data compiled June 2, 2026. Figures are estimates, not advice.

@misc{singulariki-task-13487,
  title  = {Clear brush from work areas and escape routes, and cut saplings and other trees from direction of falls, using axes, chainsaws, or bulldozers.},
  author = {{Singulariki}},
  year   = {2026},
  note   = {O*NET 30.3; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130. Accessed June 7, 2026},
  url    = {https://singulariki.com/tasks/task-13487}
}