Real Estate Show with Oregon Tree Care LLC

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RE Show Oregon Tree Care LLC

Alice Lema: [00:00:00] Well, hey, Southern Oregon, welcome back to the Real Estate Show. Gosh, I'm so glad you could join us again. Today we're gonna be interviewing Willie Gingg of Southern Oregon Tree Care. Willie comes on the show a couple times a year and helps us get ready and to be proactive with our tree and our landscaping.

And you know, we just had all those storms, and I don't know about you, but we knew a lot of people that had trees on their on their fences, and it was quite a thing. So we're gonna talk to him about that. We're also gonna ask him how to get ready for our fruit season. Cause I don't know anything about fruit trees. Maybe you do.

But willie's super scientific, super fun, and with Southern Oregon Tree care. And he'll help us get ready for our spring season. Before we bring Willie in, let's have a quick check of the local stats. Now, this is going to be all three counties. It's gonna be single family residential. We have a lot of different kinds of stats we can do, but we've pretty much been focusing on single family residential, [00:01:00] at least for our little update on the radio show.

So, Klamath Falls is down 8% in total listings. They're down 20% in Falls for the number, the quantity of sold, and this is year to date year over year. This time in 2022 to to this week, a number of houses sold in Klamath Falls is down 20%, but the prices are still up 8%, so that's very interesting. They're not selling as many houses, but they're selling them for more money.

Josephine County total listings is up 1% from this time last year. The number or quantity sold in Josephine County year over year is down 14%, but the prices in Josephine County are up 5% from this time last year.

Jackson County total number, residential single family listings is down 8% from this time last year. The number quantity sold in [00:02:00] Jackson County is down 15% from this time last year, but the prices are up 5%. So we've got some big things happening in each county, but the prices are still up. Isn't that something?

Well, we're gonna take a quick break here and get a word from our sponsors who we just love to pieces. We're brought to you by John L. Scott, Ashland, Medford. We're also brought to you by the local rogue Valley Association of Realtors, also known as RVAR and Guy Giles, Mutual Mortgage. I'm Alice Lema, I'm a broker here in beautiful southern Oregon. I'm your host of The Real Estate Show. We'll be back after a quick break from these messages and we're gonna be talking to Willie Gingg.

Well, welcome back to the Real Estate Show folks. So glad you could join us again today. We're here with Willie, the owner and arborist of Southern Oregon Tree Care. Well so here we are kind of in the winter. What kind of seasonal maintenance would you suggest people consider in their [00:03:00] trees?

Willie Gingg: Well, the big thing right now is, is fruit trees. It's, you can prune your fruit trees year round. But the heavier pruning that we want to do annually, this is the season for that. You can do a little bit of light pruning anytime of the year. We got some of our bleeding trees like mulberries and maples then we don't like to prune in the, in the spring. So this is a good time of year to do it, otherwise late summer and fall.

Alice Lema: Now what, what does a bleeding tree mean?

Willie Gingg: Just when we, we make pruning wounds in the springtime, they, they start running a lot of water and sap out. So they, they call 'em bleeding trees, like maple syrup comes from the maple trees.

And they, that's when the, when the maple trees really start pushing sap, that's when they tap 'em and start harvesting that.

Alice Lema: So is there a list of trees that you need to be careful of or you just try to do everything in the, the fall and winter?

Willie Gingg: Oh, I guess we haven't really tried to write down a list, but the, the typical ones are [00:04:00] maples and birches and something else I just missed.

Alice Lema: So on the fruit tree department, like what, what exactly are you doing? And to which fruit trees?

Willie Gingg: Really almost all of our fruit trees, apples and pears, peaches, cherries. It's, it's the time of year and you don't prune those all the same. Apples and pears are pruned pretty similar. Peaches are a little bit different, but the extension puts on a great class. Best class I've been to in three states and it's. You, you know, you end up with a quarter to a third of the tree on the ground every winter.

Alice Lema: Oh, wow. That's dramatic.

Willie Gingg: It's, it's pretty dramatic. We kind of, we try to stress 'em out just a little bit so that they will fruit. It, you know, it forces a little bit more fruit production, but then the goals to your pruning are to, to thin 'em out, shorten up some branches so that we can hang fruit on 'em, keep

Alice Lema: Oh, so that they can support.

Willie Gingg: Yeah, so they can support it. And then to go through and thin, thin out the fruit so that you get bigger and [00:05:00] better fruit. You might have fewer, but they're bigger and better. More resources are able to be put into a little bit less fruit. Spacing out the branches so we get good light penetration, good airflow, that sort of a thing.

Alice Lema: So we see a lot of fruit trees in people's yards that are not thinned. They're, they're super kind of wild looking. What does, what kind of harm can that cause?

Willie Gingg: Well I've heard there's actually laws on the books against unmaintained fruit trees in, in a yeah, because if, if homeowners have these fruit trees that can spread pests and disease to our, our orchards, we can have economic issues. It's just more upkeep for the, for the orchards and losses. So we really should be maintaining 'em.

There's, there's almost no homeowners that, that have the time or, or knowledge to go out and prune their fruit trees and spray 'em and maintain 'em the way they should be [00:06:00] maintained. So I, I'm, I've got my own fruit trees at home, but I have a fruit tree speech for people that it's just, you know, it's this great romantic notion to go out and pick an apple off the tree and just eat it right there on the spot.

But the reality is, if, if you're not gonna do the, the pruning and the spraying, the maintenance that a fruit tree requires on your own, you're way better off to just go down and, and buy some expensive organic produce. You know, if, if you're gonna pay me to do it all, it's a whole lot more expensive than going out and buying that high-end.

Alice Lema: Well, and it sounds like what you're saying to the home homeowner is to treat it like a crop.

Willie Gingg: It is, yeah. Yep. Definitely a crop. And, and we all want all these different types of, of fruit trees, where in orchards you don't really see a mix because this tree needs this certain [00:07:00] spray at this time of the year.

And that other tree has different issues and it needs sprayed at a different time. And so that's why our orchards are, are more segregated like that, where you might, you might put up your, your apple fly maggot traps and, and your coddling moth traps. And those two insects may come at different times.

Alice Lema: So interesting. Interesting. So if somebody has fruit trees, maybe they just bought a house and they have fruit trees and they are in that romantic stage we could call you and have you go to that property and then would you be able to give them instructions for each of the different kinds of fruits?

Willie Gingg: Yeah. We do consultations where we come out and we give 'em advice. We help 'em identify what types of trees they have. I may not be able to pin down the varietals of, you know, the different types of apples, but we can, oh, there's an apple, that's peach. This, this is how you prune this, this is how you prune that. A lot of people will have us come out to a tree that's been neglected and just let, let alone [00:08:00] to grow for a while.

It's kind of a hard tree to come into as, as somebody that doesn't do it very often and, and try to organize and make sense and do a good pruning job. But you don't take a tree that's been let go for five years and turn it into a great production tree in one season. It takes multiple prunes. A lot of people will have us, you know, Hey, you come in, do the first pruning, we'll take these classes and we'll maintain it after that.

And that's, that's a good goal. But I, I'll tell people often that, you know, if you're gonna pay me to come in and prune this tree this year, I'm gonna cut most of your fruit off. You're, you're not gonna have a whole lot of fruit next year. You're gonna lose a lot of fruit for that first season. But the reality is, if you're not gonna maintain this every year, hereafter. , you're throwing money away to pay me to do it the first time.

Alice Lema: What's the, what's the most difficult, common fruit tree to deal with here in Southern Oregon?

Willie Gingg: Well, I, you know, I'd say probably our, our peaches peaches, apricots, those, those bigger stone fruits. Because [00:09:00] this, this isn't really great country for. And we get a lot of fire blight issues diseases. They just, they just struggle here. Where pear trees, they, they love our, our hot summer sun, the black sticky clay over there in East Medford. It's, it's what they like. So, you know, when you start pruning all these multiple, or planting all these multiple different varieties, you're trying to figure out, well, what is this? Like, what, what's the exposure? How much water does it need? What type of pruning does it need? Oh, when do I have to spray it?

So what is fire blight? You mentioned that. What does that mean?

It's a, it's a disease that attacks, and we get it. Any, anything that's in the rose family can get fire blight and apples and pears and such. Those are all in the Rose family. Yeah. If you trace it back far enough anyway, it, it's, they call it fire blight. The, the whole end of the shoot, turns black and then starts to curl like a shepherd's crook, and it actually looks like the ends of the branches got burnt. But [00:10:00] yeah, it can, it can impact fruit production pretty heavily.

Alice Lema: And it's a disease or a bug?

Willie Gingg: It's a bacteria. Bacteria or a fungus. I think it's a bacteria.

But it's not an animal.

Alice Lema: So we hear stories of some of our trees having insect infestations and being damaging. How are we doing just generally in southern Oregon in the insect department?

Willie Gingg: No. We're losing a lot of dug furs right now. Some, some pine trees too, but our Doug furs have really taken a beaten in the, I'm convinced there's more to drought than, than we really understand right now. It's more than just surface water. We've had a lot of 'em struggle, just, even, even where they're getting some regular water.

But yeah, I'm, I'm seeing a lot of beetle damage that's killing, killing the trees, but, They're, they're generally stressed out from the last few years of, of really hot summers and, and droughty seasons, so, yeah.

Alice Lema: Mm-hmm. . Now, speaking of water, this is a little bit of a tangent, but [00:11:00] you've been in southern Oregon for quite a while, is that right?

Willie Gingg: Yeah, a couple of decades now.

Alice Lema: Okay. So we can call you a local almost. Yeah. So the weather patterns since the nineties, eighties, nineties, two thousands, what have you noticed? Cuz not everybody has been here a long time and Southern Oregons is famous for diverse weather.

Willie Gingg: Well, it just seems cyclic to me. It, it, it comes and goes, but like two, I think it was two years ago that summer came in hard and fast. Like I, I was irrigating my pastures in April and I don't normally do that.

Alice Lema: Oh, I remember that. Yeah.

Willie Gingg: The mid to late May.

Alice Lema: Yeah. Wasn't that during shutdown? . Cuz it felt like we were living in like some kind of documented prophecy.

Willie Gingg: Yeah. it got, it got so hot, so early and. And really our plants, our plants need to adapt to it. They, they, they need the, they need the weather that kind of up and down, [00:12:00] up and down, and slowly works its way up. And the same thing in the winter to slowly work its way back down and they adapt to those changes and man, it, it got hot fast. We don't normally have a hundred degree weather until July.

Alice Lema: That's right. I remember that. Yeah. That was hard.

Willie Gingg: Yeah, so, so that was, that was a big doozy. That, that was probably the biggest, strangest year. But, you know, you look at our hillsides, our native oaks and pines they've adapted to 80 or 90 days without a drop of rain, you know, through generations, which their generations are longer than ours.

 But that doesn't mean they don't like water, you know? So the years, those, those, those years where we have an all summer without a drop of rain, that's, that's even hard on our natives that are, are adapted to it. But those, the other years where we'll have thunderstorms roll through and drop an inch of rain every month, everything likes that, everything benefits from that cuz it gets a good deep soaking. [00:13:00] And then it dries back out and the fungal pathogens can't thrive.

They need warm and wet. Not, you know, it, it's okay to get soggy, but it's not okay to stay soggy kind of a thing.

Alice Lema: I think there's a t-shirt in there somewhere, southern Oregon Tree Care. It's okay to get soggy, but not stay soggy. So we're talking to Willie Gingg of Southern Oregon Tree Care.

Thank you so much for coming on again. What about the drought and fruit trees? Before we wrap up, we've just got a couple minutes left. How did the drought affect our farms and our crop?

Willie Gingg: You know, I couldn't speak too much to the farms. But like more of the residential type of things. The, the trees that have a regular irrigation, again, not staying soggy, but getting, getting deep, soaking is less often is what our trees prefer.

Alice Lema: Mm-hmm. and fruit trees are gonna need more than, you know, our native, our native forest would. [00:14:00] So Trees that have just been let go, kind of a bad deal. They, they struggle. It's, they don't usually dry up and die in just one year, but over multiple seasons that they can eventually die if they're not getting regular water, cuz they need it for their fruit when they're putting the fruit production on and such.

Mm-hmm. Well, we've got a quick break coming up. We're talking to Willie Gingg, Southern Oregon Tree Care, getting lots of good tips, been talking about the past season. And we're gonna ask you some questions about fire, danger, storm damage, and neighbors In the next segment, Willie. So, standby, we've got give a quick break to our sponsors.

We're gratefully brought to you by Guy Giles Mutual Mortgage. John L. Scott Ashland and Medford, and our local Rogue Valley Association of Realtors, also known as RVAR. Thank you so much, folks. We have a quick break. We'll be right back.

Well, hey everybody. Thank you so much for tuning into the [00:15:00] Real Estate Show. We're talking to Willie Gingg from Southern Oregon Tree Care. He just is, he's another human walking encyclopedia . We've got a couple of you folks that come on the show. It's just great. So in the last segment we were talking about fruit trees and kind of where we're at seasonally right now. We just went through months and months of really dramatic wind and rain and snow. How are the Southern Oregon trees doing through all the storm damage?

Willie Gingg: You know, that was probably our biggest bout of damage we've had in a few years. Most of, most of our storm damage comes with the south wind. But when we have sea, a storm like this where we just, we had that one atmospheric river that got the ground just saturated and then we had another big south wind come in right behind it.

That's, that's why we lost so many trees. Cause we usually, when we get those big south winds, it's usually as the storm front and the [00:16:00] ground isn't saturated. You know, the wind comes and then the rain behind it. But because these were, were stacked up back to back, I bet we had over a thousand trees down in the valley.

Alice Lema: Oh my God, really?

Willie Gingg: Oh, we had trees down everywhere from Ashland all the way to Grant's Pass and yeah, and that's, that's just our work area. I'm sure the Grants Pass folks had a lot more up there too. Anyway. Yeah, we, we had a lot of trees that were coming down, you know, leaning over houses or on houses, blocking driveways, all kinds of things.

Alice Lema: So are there any varieties of trees that were especially susceptible?

Willie Gingg: Well, every, every year the blue spruce and the Raywood ash are the two most common that we lose in the wintertime. Every winter we get calls about those. So this storm was big, big enough. It, it got a lot of different trees.

Alice Lema: So blue spruce and what was the other one? Raywood Ash. Raywood. Mm-hmm. . So [00:17:00] what is what's unique to those two varieties that make them susceptible?

Willie Gingg: I couldn't say. I mean, they both put a nice root system out, good spreading root system. But when the ground gets wet and the wind blows, that whole root system is standing up in the air. So for some reason they just can't hang on.

Alice Lema: Oh, that's really interesting. So I'm not a plant person, which is why I so love talking to you. Are those two trees, the blue spruce and the Raywood wood, see, I, I need a hearing aid , saving up for Costco. Here I come the Blue Spruce and the, the Raywood, are those native to Southern Oregon? They're, they're not, neither of them.

Willie Gingg: Well, very commonly planted around here. Yeah, well, like we had said earlier, before the show started, there's, there's over 200 varieties of trees that will grow here with care and irrigation.

Alice Lema: Yeah, we were jokingly [00:18:00] talking before the show about palm trees. So since we're talking about things that aren't normal here let's talk about palm.

Yeah, there's a, there's a couple of varieties that

Willie Gingg: I, I couldn't tell you what they are off the top of my head. Name-wise, there's a couple varieties that do pretty well here and like we had talked in the first segment about the temperature working its way up. We need the temperature to work its way down. Because we've, we've had years where we were in single digit temperatures in December. That's really early for that. But a lot of plants, including those palms that are borderline trees, we lost a lot of palms that year, just just because they froze.

Alice Lema: Mm-hmm because they don't actually supposed to grow here, did they? I mean, they're not, they're not, are they like.

Willie Gingg: No, they're not native. You, you kind of need to amend the soil for a palm tree. And you know, they're, they're tough. They can, they can do okay here, but they don't grow here native because they don't like our local [00:19:00] conditions without being irrigated regularly. And our temperatures are borderline.

Alice Lema: Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . Well, every time somebody wants to put in a pool, they want a palm tree to go with it. I'm always standing there going, I don't know that that's a good idea. But then shockingly they do.

Willie Gingg: Palm trees are actually a type of grass, not a tree.

Alice Lema: Are they really? Oh my god. That's crazy. They're in the grass family. Wow. Okay. So somebody gets a pool or not, but they get a palm tree with the house they buy. So do you have any suggestions for them for maintenance and care?

Willie Gingg: Well, so the big, the biggest thing don't plant too close to the pool. Cause they do, they put a fruit on. And if you don't go up and prune the fruit out regularly, it drops. And there's little, little marbles all over the place in the pool and everywhere. Planting wise, they're not an aggressive rooting tree, so they, they are a decent tree to plant around pools. [00:20:00] It's probably not gonna crack pool decks and, and the walls of your pool.

Alice Lema: Oh, I didn't even think of that.

Willie Gingg: Yeah, a lot of, a lot of trees, we, we find damage to pools because of the root system.

Alice Lema: Okay, we're gonna talk about that next. Finish your thought about the palm tree .

Willie Gingg: So, yeah, just, just planting, there's, it's like, I, I wanna say it's 50% top soil, 25% P gravel, 25% sand, kind of a nice medium to plant your palm trees in. And then there's special palm tree fertilizer, granular.

Alice Lema: Oh, tree fertilizer yeah. Oh, I didn't even know. Good grief. Oh, good grief. So what about trimming? Because they get really shaggy palm trees.

Willie Gingg: Yeah. So they should be pruned regularly to make 'em, to keep 'em looking nice. We do what we call 10 and two, so like, like 10 o'clock and two o'clock on a clock. Anything below that, frond wise, the leaves we take off, anything above that we leave on, and then [00:21:00] we can take the fruit out anytime.

Alice Lema: So when you say fruit, I thought palm trees were like bananas or coconuts. Is that what you're talking about?

Willie Gingg: Kinda ? Yeah. It's kinda like that where there's, there's, there's one stem that that grows out and it's got a wrapper that looks a little bit like a banana, but then it's full of little, little beads.

Alice Lema: Uhhuh, . Can you eat it? The seeds?

Willie Gingg: The seeds are little, I don't think so. By the time they come out of the tree, they're hard as little rocks.

Alice Lema: Oh, okay. . Well, that is so fascinating. Okay, so trees around pools. Okay. Dos and don'ts.

Willie Gingg: Don't, just don't ,

Alice Lema: that's don't plant, don't the tree near the pool.

Willie Gingg: Yeah. Sometimes the little Japanese maples, people will plant those in pots too. Which is not ideal, but it can be maintained that way for a long time. Eventually they're gonna, they're gonna struggle in that limited root system and they'll need regular water. But you know, you gotta be careful [00:22:00] with with the chlorine and the saltwater pools because both of those things can be toxic to the tree.

Alice Lema: Oh, of course. That makes sense.

Willie Gingg: Kids, kids doing cannon balls into the pool and stuff can, can be an issue with the trees in the long run. Start becoming a toxicity issue when, when the water slops out and runs over to the trees.

Alice Lema: I don't think people, I don't think a lot of people know that.

Willie Gingg: Yeah, I, I looked at one this winter and, and figured that was what the issue was. It was a nice, really nice saltwater pool and the deck was just sloped just a little bit toward the trees and, and the look that I saw on the trees looked like, looked like a toxicity issue.

Alice Lema: And so, oh, that's sad.

Willie Gingg: We didn't pull the soil analysis or anything, but I'm pretty sure it was, it was a salt issue.

Alice Lema: Uhhuh . So, but would that be the next step is you'd actually analyze the soil?

Willie Gingg: If they wanted to go that far, then yeah, we, we could pull a soil analysis and I'm almost sure that's what it would, would come back as.

Alice Lema: Mm-hmm. . [00:23:00] So what would be an adequate distance away from a pool?

Willie Gingg: Just depends on the tree. There's, there's a lot of small trees and then there's bigger trees, so you gotta look at, part of what keeps me in business, Alice, is, is the wrong tree in the wrong place. You know, all that cute little tree the kids brought home from school on Arbor Day and they, they put it in there two feet from the house and it looked great there, but that was 20, 30 years ago and now it's cracking the foundation. You know, but banging into the gutters up there and such because you really have to look at the mature size of the tree, when you decide where you're gonna plant it, how big is that actually gonna be?

And a root system in an ideal setting can be two and a half times the spread of the canopy. So, yeah, I mean, and that's generally the fine feeder roots, not the big woody damaging roots, but yeah. Yeah, it's, it's, it's pretty large. So, you know, 20 to 30 feet at minimum, I would say, you know, un, unless you're [00:24:00] going with a really small tree.

Alice Lema: So before planting any trees, I guess call you do homework, and nothing really close.

Willie Gingg: Yeah, we, like I said, we do consults people, people want information, they want to talk about planting. What, what do you think would be good here? You know, oh, this is a south exposure. Oh, it's on the north side of the house. It's, you know, there's that black asphalt on the, on the west side of the tree radiating our hot afternoon sun.

Alice Lema: Oh. Does asphalt make a difference?

Willie Gingg: Oh boy. It can really increase the temperature dramatically. So in that, in the hot afternoon.

Alice Lema: Wow, that's surprising. Mm-hmm. So what is native to Southern Oregon?

Willie Gingg: Well, I mean, we can go down that road too, but again, each little microclimate or little change is a different variety's gonna grow there. But we've got the black oaks and the white oaks, the incense cedar, Ponderosa pine, [00:25:00] Doug fur. You get down on the river, the creeks, there's Oregon ash, there's big leaf maple, there's, we, we've got quite a few native varieties. So,

Alice Lema: yeah. And it's, it's very diverse, isn't it? Because we have so many elevations and like you said, little micro climates.

Willie Gingg: Yeah, my house I, I live on a creek, but the other side of the house is a hot dry hillside. I've got nine native varieties that grow here.

Alice Lema: Oh, wow. Wow. So let's talk a little bit waterfront, because that's monitored closely by the state of Oregon. But what do homeowners do? You're a homeowner with waterfront how do you, how do you take care of those?

Willie Gingg: I just prune what needs to be pruned. Removals, just basically whatever dies because I, I like, I like all my trees down on the creek and, you know, you want to keep the creek cool. It's, it's eight to 10 degrees cooler up at my house and down on the valley floor, generally because of the creek and, well, that's a big deal.

It's nice, it's really [00:26:00] nice in the summer. So. But yeah, you just, you gotta be careful if you're making big changes or cutting down live healthy trees. Yeah. Generally you go talk to the county. So they're, they're the first place to talk to. But like, we had a, we had a big oak tree some years ago fall out into the Rogue River outta Shady Cove and. I had to deal with the city of Shady Cove. It didn't, they didn't really care too much about what was what, but I deal with the Oregon State Marine Board. I had to deal with Fish and wildlife. I had to deal with the sheriff's Marine Patrol.

Alice Lema: Why The Sheriff's Patrol?

Willie Gingg: So basically Fish and Wildlife said leave the tree there. We, it's, it's, leave it high water, yeah, it's high water fish habitat. And the State Marine Board said, get it out of there. That's a navigation hazard. Property owner thought the same thing. And and so then the, the sheriff is actually the one that goes up and maintains the river, the search and rescue guys.

Alice Lema: Oh, that's right. They do.

Willie Gingg: Yeah, they do. They maintain, they go out and, and cut the trees out of the river at the beginnings of the [00:27:00] season and such when they, when they find out there's a hazard. So we had to, we had to deal with them to, they were kind of the go between, between those two.

Alice Lema: The liaison. Yeah. So hold that thought Willie, because we are gonna come back after a quick word from our sponsors. We've got Willie Gingg from Southern Oregon Tree Care.

Well, welcome back to the Real Estate Show folks. I'm Alice Lema. I'm a broker here in Southern Oregon with John L scott Real Estate, and we're talking to Willie Gingg of Southern Oregon Tree Care. And we were right before the break talking about riverfront tree maintenance and removal, and you were talking about how you had a tree fall down in Shady Cove and how many different agencies had to be involved with that river. And we left off with the wanting it removed because it was a hazard. And who wanted it to stay? Cuz it was fish habitat.

Willie Gingg: The Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Alice Lema: Department of Fish and Wildlife. So how did it get resolved?

Willie Gingg: Well, the sheriff kind of split the difference and said we, [00:28:00] we could winch it up out of the river, get rid of the brush, but we had to leave the log up on the bank right next to the river in, inside the high water mark so that when the river was up, the small fish had a little place to hide. That that log stayed there for two or three years, but it's, it's gone now. It floated away .

Alice Lema: Yeah. Cuz that's what they do. Yeah. So did you you actually the one to winch it up onto the bank.

Willie Gingg: It was our job, but we, we subcontracted in a, a kind of a small logging piece of equipment. A small yard.

Alice Lema: Yeah. Because that's kind of a big deal to winch a big log out of the river. Yeah. And the Rogue River runs pretty fast, huh?

Willie Gingg: There was a lot of current and force involved, so Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Alice Lema: Our loggers still come in handy. Okay. Speaking of loggers, back in the olden days when a fire started, and I hear this from the old time loggers, that's where I got the story, is that they were up there logging and had all their heavy equipment, and if there was a lightning strike, a fire, a lot of times the [00:29:00] loggers put 'em out right from the get-go. So yeah, so fire danger has changed a lot over the years. Let's talk about fire, danger and trees.

Willie Gingg: So, yeah, so you, you wanted to hear about a lady, I just came from her place and she lives up on the top of a steep knob and she's got a lot of heavy brush right below her house. And on, on 360 degrees all the way around her house.

It's just steep downhill and she's lost a lot of Doug fur trees. The, the boars have gotten them and, and, you know, You either, you either can spend gobs of money trying to do maintenance in there, doing some fire fuels reduction, and still being at the top of a hill, you're, you're really in a, in a hotspot there, so to speak.

Where fire runs uphill, it generally crawls downhill, but it runs uphill cuz the heat rises and, yeah, so [00:30:00] I, I told the lady, I said, I said if I was, and there was a fire right here in your local vicinity. I'd just leave cuz it's, it's not defendable where she's at. It's a very steep, very steep driveway and just everything's straight up to the house and lots of fuels.

So, you know, my house, it's some kind of in a tender box canyon, but you know, I've, I've got big water tanks and fire pumpers and equipment and such. You know, and, and enough open area that the fire department would, would potentially hang out here and help defend my house.

Alice Lema: So, now, did you have the fire department come and talk to you, or you just know what the rules are so you could.

Willie Gingg: No, I, I know what's needed. I know my bridge is good enough for them. My bridge is certified through the county and they, they will come here, but it's just a matter if they feel comfortable to stay here during a fire to defend it.

Alice Lema: And I don't think people know that, that the fire department, the forestry, the [00:31:00] wild, wild, is it wildland? All those folks, they, if, if you bring them out to your place ahead of time so they know that you've taken care of it, they give you kind of the thumbs up if there's an emergency. You're the house will try to help. They don't help everybody. That's what Willie is saying. Not everybody, they, they try to, but at some point they do try. They do, but sometimes they have to make choices. Yeah. And you wanna be the one , which is what Willie is saying. You wanna be the one they stay at.

Willie Gingg: At some point their safety is, is greater concern than just the house.

Alice Lema: Yeah. Yeah. So with this gal that you were talking to what was the final decision on her?

Willie Gingg: Just, we're gonna go up and put down a bunch of, a bunch of her down or dead trees and just lop 'em down. So they're laying on the ground and she's just adding to the, the fuels there, which, which is a bit of a concern, but cleaning those particular trees up is not going to really increase her [00:32:00] safety.

She's, if, if she wants to increase her safety, she's gonna spend a lot of money on that particular property. You know, not everybody's property is gonna require as much.

Alice Lema: But the steepness of her property and because you're saying fire goes quickly uphill yeah. But that's the concern. So, so if you're looking at rural property, that's something to keep in mind is the steepness, the elevation. And if you're at the very tippy top of something and there is an emergency, what do you.

Willie Gingg: Defendable space, is there more than one way out of the property? Things like that.

Alice Lema: And if somebody just needs to know the rule of thumb about defensible space, what, what how many feet and what is it you're trying to do to keep your, oh,

Willie Gingg: think it's 50 to a hundred feet is their, is their, they're basic, but you know, they're, they're best off to call ODF and have ODF come out and cruise. There you go with them. And then once OD F's been out there, if they need further help, they can call us and we can come out and consult with them. Tell 'em what we can and can't do. And. [00:33:00] What, what we see.

Alice Lema: So that's a, that's a great idea. Yeah. Especially if you're not used to living in the country or as a hermit . Yeah. You want, you wanna, well,

Willie Gingg: we're usually pretty in line with, with what they say as well. But they're free. You know, we all pay taxes and they generally would come out for free. And our consults cost money, so.

Alice Lema: Well, and we're really lucky in, in southern Oregon, our city people answer the phone. ODF answers the phone, like people answer the phone. And they're really nice. People come here from these big cities all over the nation. They're just shocked how, how helpful all of our agencies are.

Willie Gingg: Yeah, ODF is a really good agency down here.

Alice Lema: So let's talk in the last few minutes neighbors, because, you know, with all these storms, I got a lot of calls from people saying, my trees are fine, my neighbors are bending over. What do I do? What should I tell people?

Willie Gingg: You know? So we've had all aspects [00:34:00] where we had one lady had a big tree fall across, it was right on her property line. It fell over into the neighbors and cut one of his rental houses in half.

Alice Lema: Oh my God.

Willie Gingg: Yeah everybody was okay, but oh but the owner next door said, well, the rest of those trees are a hazard too. And so she wanted us to come out and take a look and you know, I mean, we're never gonna be able to come out and say, your tree is safe.

You just can't do that. But you know, I went out and told her, I was like, well, these are the defects I see the, you know, but the reality is that tree fell in a very significant storm when a thousand other trees came down in the valley too. You can't just go and say, because that tree is the same size and in a similar location, that it's also a hazard.

That's just not how it works. But everybody has a different, different comfort level of risk. You know, whether, whether they said, fine, we're not gonna take 'em down, or, oh, you know what, it still makes me nervous. I want 'em down. That's okay. And we also had the [00:35:00] university call and we went and looked at a tree that had bent and stayed bent, which was kind of a problem.

We could, we could see the way it was leaning that, yeah, that's, you know, I, I don't know how big of a risk it is, but that's a pretty high traffic area. And so the university themselves took the tree down within a couple of days just because, It, it wasn't normal.

Alice Lema: Interesting dilemma. Yeah. Yeah. So, Willie we're out of time. I'm sorry. We just, we gotta have you on more often. How do people get a hold of you? We got 10 seconds. Give us your phone number.

Willie Gingg: Oh, the office is 541-772-0404.

Alice Lema: And they're great folks. We've had lots of clients use them. They're just great. We're all done. See you next week. Have a beautiful weekend. Bye now.