For counties, cities, towns and townships
Tree work safety training for public crews.
An online course on ANSI Z133-2026, the current edition of the safety standard for tree work. Forestry, parks and public works staff take the same eight hours at their own pace, whenever the work allows, and each person who passes gets a certificate in their own name.
- Format
- Online
- At your own pace, on a phone or a laptop
- Length
- About 8 hours
- Across 7 modules
- Built on
- ANSI Z133
- The 2026 edition
- Each person gets
- A certificate
- In their own name, valid 24 months
Why train the whole crew
The standard was written with public crews in it.
Z133 defines arboriculture as utility, commercial and municipal tree care. A county crew and a private one work to the same document.
The standard changed in 2026
Z133-2026 replaced the 2017 edition in May 2026. The 2017 edition recognized three levels of electrical qualification, and the 2026 edition recognizes four. A safety program written before then was written against 2017. Nobody fell behind: the document moved.
Arborists and public works staff take the same course
Plenty of the people who do a department’s tree work are not arborists by title. They run a mower in July and a chipper in October. The chipper rules do not change with the job title, so everybody takes the same eight hours.
Storm cleanup is tree work, and the standard says so
When a storm puts trees across the roads, the cleanup lands on public crews. Z133 treats every wire and cable on a storm site as energized, communication lines included, and expects the people doing the cleanup to be trained for it. The electrical module covers both.
Street work starts with the street
Streets, parks and sidewalks mean traffic going by and people walking past. Z133 puts traffic and pedestrian control in place before the first cut, and expects whoever runs the work zone to be trained for it. The course covers both.
The risk is on the record
Deaths, injuries and OSHA citations in US tree care are published by federal agencies. The data page collects them, dated and sourced, so you can weigh the risk from the record rather than from us.
The trees belong to everybody who walks under them. The standard for working on them belongs to everybody on the crew.
How it fits the year
No class to schedule and no trainer to book.
The course is 50 lessons, and it picks up where each person left off. That can be an hour on a rain day, a few lessons through the winter or a push before storm season, rather than a whole day with the crew off the road.
Nobody travels. The seasonal hire who starts in April takes it in April, rather than waiting for the next class.
What the certificate is
A record of training that anyone can check.
When somebody passes, the certificate says they completed the full course of instruction and passed the final assessment for a course built on ANSI Z133-2026. It carries their name, the date it was issued, the date it expires two years later, and a code, also printed as a QR code. Anyone can check that code on this site without an account.
It does not certify competence. It is not a license, a credential, an accreditation or a legal shield, and it makes no claim about which safety regulations your department answers to. Whether it is the record you need is yours to judge.
How buying works
A quote you can file, and an invoice against your purchase order.
We send a written quote, priced for a crew rather than at the individual rate, and a W-9. We invoice against your purchase order, and a purchasing card works too.
A person arranges all of it, not a checkout on the site. There is no cart and no department account: each person takes the course on their own account, because the certificate names them.
If training money is set once a year, tell us when your fiscal year starts, so the quote reaches you before the budget is set. Renewal, two years on, means taking the course again against the standard as it stands then.
Tell us about the crew
How many people, and we will come back with a quote.
The course is not open yet. This puts you on the list for launch and starts the conversation about a quote. To send your fiscal year start, or anything the form does not ask, write to contact@safetyaid.org.