The Tuolumne County Tree Mortality Task Force is hard at work removing the thousands of trees in our area that have been killed by the Western Bark Beetle.  Because of the close proximity to homes, power lines, and other structures, many of these trees will be removed by cranes (climbing the trees is too dangerous because of the loose bark and dead limbs).  Here is a video that we took of one such tree being removed.  The crane doing the work is a 275 ton crane with a boom that is 192 feet long.  Each tree takes about and hour and a half to remove.  What you see in this 12 minute video is just part of the work, after the crane is set up.