Tragically, an excavator operator lost his life here a couple of days ago when a large tree crushed his cab. Got me to thinking how it is common to see excavators pushing large trees but very rare to see much in the way of cab protection beyond some guarding of glass etc. Canopies on dozers used for clearing,here,have been evolving for decades but not so much for excavators. Perhaps there’s false sense of security... being further away from the tree and pushing much higher?
The ZX series Hitachi's have ROPS cabs as standard with the FOPS being an option. Komatsu is the same. The photo I saw on the news looked like he had been pulling the tree. Just inexperienced my guess I Have cleared plenty of trees without putting a scratch on the machines, the biggest had 80 tons of firewood cut out of it and the stump weighed 17 tons. Tipped the whole tree over with a UH083.
Yea I tend to agree likely inexperience. I've pushed over 40' trees with my 6 ton mini without a second thought. With my 210 i've had a few I couldn't push over due to tight clearance and basically had to grab with the thumb and lift straight out, a bit nerve racking and need to know what you're doing, but never a concern about it coming to the cab, moreso onto a fence or something. If you're just out clearing with tons of room, there should never be an issue if you use common sense. Dozers are different as you are pushing from so much lower and have very little control over the tree.
The forest industry that use a converted excavator in the wood will have a complete structure put around the cab just for this reason. An excavator is a pretty weak tool for using over a tree vs say a shovel logger where the boom and cylinders are placed completely different for reach as well as strength.
A percentage of the mature timber that we deal with here has been weakened by white ants, so large branches or even entire tops can snap off and rain down on any machine underneath as soon as the tree is given a decent poke. I just get very uneasy being under trees of a certain size without a solid canopy over me.