<\/p>\n
HESPERUS \u2013 Five thousand, two hundred sixty and counting. That\u2019s how many cords of wood Tom Fischer says he\u2019s cut and sold in almost 30 years.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s more than 660,000 cubic feet of wood \u2013 enough to fill more than 7\u00bd Olympic-size swimming pools. And Fischer cut each cord \u2013 4-feet-tall by 4-feet-wide by 8-feet-long \u2013 all by himself.<\/p>\n
He isn\u2019t much of a people person.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just live my life and leave people alone,\u201d he said. \u201cI love and adore the peace and quite of the wilderness.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fischer worked for himself most of his life, whether running a newspaper distributorship seven days a week or working countless hours alone cutting and hauling trees out of forests in the San Juan Basin. He moved from a secluded 4-acre property in Rafter J years ago to escape a swelling neighborhood. He\u2019s been to San Diego, but left a few hours after he arrived.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were just too many people,\u201d Fischer said from a reclining chair in his dimly lit, fire-warmed trailer, smoke rising in a column from his hand-rolled cigarette. He\u2019s smoked for years, said Dan Wand, a forester with the Colorado State Forest Service office in Durango from 1987 to 2017.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was just a nice, pleasant guy. He never really had a bad attitude. He always trying to do the right things for the right reasons,\u201d Wand said. \u201cAs for his mannerisms \u2013 it works for Tom.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fischer said he knew the first time he felled a tree on Missionary Ridge that a logger\u2019s life was for him. It was the 1980s, and he worked seven days a week ensuring the Rocky Mountain News, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal landed on doorsteps in Southwest Colorado.<\/p>\n
Fischer wouldn\u2019t hire a bookkeeper or general manager \u2013 he said he couldn\u2019t hire someone he could trust like himself. The only vacation he took in his almost decadelong distributorship was a four-day trip to the East Coast to visit his grandmother.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted my life back,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
So, in 1991, he quit, sold the business and bought a chain saw, truck and a tractor.<\/p>\n
Wand said he first met Fischer when he worked in his distributorship. He remembers when Fischer got into the logging business and bought all new equipment \u2013 \u201cI realized he\u2019s kind of serious about doing it,\u201d Wand said.<\/p>\n
Fischer landed his first Colorado State Forest Service gig in Echo Basin near Mancos.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe learning phase \u2013 the first two years \u2013 were the most dangerous,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Each tree presents a unique danger. \u201cSome of the trees get ticked off and don\u2019t want to be cut,\u201d he said. And Fischer, in his almost 30 years of forestry, said he\u2019s seen it all.<\/p>\n
Some trees have thick limbs because upward growth is stunted by porcupines, which eat bark at the top of a tree and force growth into the branches. When the trees fall, the limbs act like a spring, flipping the tree in mid-air, Fischer said.<\/p>\n
Some trees are surrounded by brush and other obstacles that can trap someone in the path of a falling tree, he said. And if a tree isn\u2019t cut low enough, its heft can cause the timber to fall in unanticipated ways.<\/p>\n
Fischer said he once saw a man cut a tree at waist height \u2013 beer in hand \u2013 and the trunk slid and fell on the man\u2019s foot. The tree crushed every bone, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce a tree starts going down, you never know,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Reclaiming time<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard labor hauling trees weighing hundreds of pounds through the Southwest Colorado backcountry, and Fischer does it the old-fashioned way \u2013 just himself, his truck and a wood splitter, Wand said. The forester knew Fischer to be meticulous \u2013 his piles were always stacked in a neat and orderly way, Wand said.<\/p>\n
Now retired, the 62-year-old Fischer says he can\u2019t get out of the forest. Fischer said he tried to quit in 2013. He rented his home, sold his tractor and traveled the Southwest in a trailer he customized himself. That\u2019s when he went to, and promptly left, San Diego.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the meditative nature of cutting that keeps him coming back. He keeps detailed logs of his work in the wilderness in notebooks he\u2019s had since early \u201990s. He\u2019s kept every contract he\u2019s ever been awarded from the State Forest Service in a manila envelope. He has scrapbooks filled with pictures from the woods.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a different world,\u201d he said. \u201cAs long as I can physically do it, I\u2019ll cut the wood.\u201d<\/p>\n
People have always told him he\u2019s a smart guy and that he has more potential than required to cut and sell wood for a living, Fischer said. But felling trees, cutting trunks and splitting wood is enough to keep \u201ca roof over my head and food in my gut,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m supposed to be retired, but I do this because it\u2019s something to do,\u201d Fischer said of his firewood business. \u201cAnd it helps keep up with inflation.\u201d<\/p>\n