MISSOULA — The City of Missoula’s Urban Forestry division is hard at work all year, and the holidays do not mean a break for the team tasked with managing Missoula’s gigantic collection of trees.
The director of Missoula’s Urban Forestry team says that despite thinking they only get busy during the winter the team is busy all year.
They are always available during the year -- and that includes Thanksgiving -- where they dealt with three calls throughout the day.
Downed tree limbs are usually the cause of high winds and Missoula's Urban Forestry works on preventing falling tree branches all year by assessing at risk trees before heavy winded storms.
But sometimes they can't quite get there in time, like when a 40-foot downed tree in Rose Park that almost took out a memorial
Missoula Urban Forestry Operations Manager Gerald Auch said they are very fortunate the tree missed the memorial and had only damaged a light pole.
“We had a three-man crew come out, [an] Urban Forestry crew and a chip truck one of our sawyers and we made pretty quick work of it and we were out of here in about two hours,” said Auch. "So, we chip all that up we use those chips and will probably be placing them in one of our parks.”
Missoula's Urban Forestry team was not super busy on Thanksgiving as they only had to respond to three calls in the city.
