One reason so many workers need to do the highly dangerous work of trimming palm trees is because the dry fronds can be a big fire hazard. “We felt that there was just a great need for additional training in people’s native language, being Spanish for the most part.” Mercado started his organization a few years ago with a friend after being disturbed by so many palm tree worker deaths. “It’s really tragic when fire departments can’t reach the victims.” When tree trimmers climb the palm trunks and cut fronds from below, those fronds can suddenly slough downward and pin and suffocate the tree trimmer against the trunk. “What happens is the palms, when they get to a substantial size, 40, 50, 60 feet tall, the lower fronds stay attached to the trunk, but up above, that high, those fronds become interlocked,” says Jose Mercado, executive director and lead instructor of the Hispanic Arborist Assn. Here is a list of some of the victims and causes of palm tree worker deaths in the state, accumulated by the California Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation program: Tree trimmer (Hispanic male) is electrocuted while trimming a palm tree, 2018 landscaper (Hispanic male) dies from asphyxia when compressed by palm fronds, 2016 two tree trimmers (Hispanic males) die when they are electrocuted while pollinating date palm trees, 2016 tree trimmer (Hispanic male) dies from asphyxia when compressed by palm fronds, 2012 tree trimmer (Hispanic male) dies when he is crushed by palm tree fronds, 2012 tree trimmer (Hispanic male) dies when he is crushed by palm tree branches, 2010.Īccidents are not unique to palm trees, but the dangers posed by palm fronds are. Here’s one of the biggest moral cases against palm trees: Palm trees kill workers, mostly Latino tree trimmers, in some of the most horrible work-related accidents you could imagine. Palm fronds can tear away and tumble toward pedestrians below in the best-case scenario, when the frond doesn’t hit anyone or a car, it becomes litter.

They don’t provide shade, which is a problem as the planet gets hotter and less friendly to human survival. Some people think they’re too tall, especially the spindly Mexican fan palms ( Washingtonia robusta), which can reach 100 feet, towering over some low-slung buildings like they’re practically in low orbit. itself.īut palm trees, when they are not being symbols, are kind of a problem to live with.

In the 1800s and 1900s, new Angelenos hauled in palms from elsewhere around the world, scrying in the fronds some reminder of the Mediterranean or the Asian brim of the Pacific, as Jared Farmer recounted in his book “ Trees in Paradise.” (Even before Hollywood was Hollywood, many locals looked at Southern California and saw something else.) Once planted in neighborhoods and business districts around town - on public and private property alike - the decades crossed and palm trees stopped signifying everything else and started signifying L.A. palms, like most of L.A.'s peoples, are immigrants to this place, not native from the time of the Tongva, before the colonizers came. You can fully oppose palm tree fires while having a love/hate relationship with palm trees themselves, as Los Angeles has had for the last century. These fake ones give us TikTok on our cellphonesĬellular transmission towers that are made to look like trees now blanket L.A. A lot like Los Angeles.īusiness Trees give us life. It’s beautiful, sad, ironic, unnatural, memorable and dangerous. On Twitter, sometimes you’re the palm tree and sometimes you’re the fire.īut have you seen a palm tree on fire at night? It’s a fist of flame raised to the sky, raining sparks. (I like trees, dislike destruction, value durability.) I also have mixed feelings about randomly retweeting internet strangers with small follower counts who post a photo of a tree fire, even when their captions are something like “fireworks caught the palm tree on fire lol” or “MY IDIOT NEIGHBORS CAUGHT THE TREE ON FIRE.” It’s generally pleasant to just hang out online and post random stuff until some horrible, surprising, controversial situation arises that centrally involves you, and lots of strangers are suddenly watching you closely with intense interest. I don’t particularly enjoy the thought of flaming palm trees.

Like anything done as a gag for too long, the schtick becomes associated with you, which I have mixed feelings about. July 2020: “not ashamed to admit that the only reason I’ve downloaded the Citizen app is to detect L.A.

Knockknock cupon 4th of july 2018