Mr. Tree Delivers With Major Recovery Project

Mr. Tree Delivers With Major Recovery Project

Dropping ashes and billowing wind-driven smoke into Portland some 50+ miles to the West, the Columbia River Gorge fires in 2017 burned for three months from September 4 until seasonal rains in late November finally extinguished the burning catastrophe that was started by a 15-year-old kid playing with fireworks. Before it was over, almost 50,000 acres of timberland across multiple public and private ownerships covering some of the most breathtakingly scenic and intensely rugged terrain North America has to offer were torched.

Aside from the timberland damages, fire impact was immense: sections of I-84 and U.S. Hwy. 30 were closed for weeks, local communities were evacuated and air quality issues affected school activities as far away as the Portland metro area and even westward. Many businesses in the area were severely impacted.

A national treasure, the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area is hugely popular throughout the region as a hiking and tourist destination. Dozens of trails were damaged, roads and highways were unsafe to travel because for hazard trees—and gorge fans

As soon as the all-clear was given, one of the first companies on site to begin repairing the damage was Mr. Tree of Happy Valley, Ore., a multifaceted operation based on the outskirts of the greater Portland area that can do just about anything with a tree when it comes to commercial tree and timber work. Mr. Tree can truly do it all, from trimming and pruning dainty Japanese maples in a city subdivision to full-scale contract logging on industrial or public timberland— and everything in between. That includes stump grinding, lot clearing, right-of-way and subdivision work, plus tree trimming and thinning and hazard and danger tree removal.

Mr. Tree also employs three grinders that are utilized to complement the company’s tree and land-clearing operations, operate at the company’s expanded mulch and bark yard and also pursue outside work such as the gorge fire recovery and salvage project.

The company was founded in 1997 and is led by Wilbur Akins and his wife, Joyce. Wilbur looks after the logging and large tree work, Josh Woolsey is operations manager for Mr. Tree’s tree service operations, and Kyle Pettit manages the grinding work.