found a few dead like that. One had burnt branch tips on one side. Found many with double and triple stripes deep into the sap wood and they blew the bark off most of them but not every one. Damn hard wood left behind. You feel it while cutting.
The more we discuss this possibility of lightning, the more I think that's what happened. Trees and people don't stand a chance against several million volts. The lightning goes straight to the ground and probably knocks out the tap root and lots of others. Strong direct lightning strikes can take the tree right out of the ground, but the indirect strike is likely what caused this. No disease or root rot could possibly have killed this healthy tree in less than three months.
Could be that the tree saved my house that has no lightning rods.
Holy Cow! You have to wonder if the GFCI or even the main breakers could have prevented some of that, but it can happen so fast with high voltage that nothing would have worked. My tree is also located right next to sprinkler pipe. I guess I was darned lucky. The tree apparently took the brunt of the electrical energy. You neighbor was not as fortunate. Perhaps his hit was a direct hit, not indirect. Frankly, it's scary.
Only two things scare me, dead trees and lightning. You can quote that.
And just when I thought that we had this cause of death solved, I received another written reply from a tree surgeon. He says the 20' diameter tree ring eventually killed the tree. He says, "I know it sounds absurd, but sometimes it takes five years, and the tree dies anyway, about 90% of the time. I have no clue why."
I still have to wonder how on earth the tree ring could kill it that fast. Usually a tree dies a few branches at a time as one or two roots fail and it takes several years before all are gone and no leaves appear. This tree went from being healthy with full leaf and no dead limbs to no leaves at all in 2.5 months?
Since early spring, 2014. It leafed out and was healthy in 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017. Not a dead branch on the tree in all those years. then 2018 showed up and now it's naked as a jay bird. Truly a tragedy, I planted the tree in 1988 when it was about 7 years old. It has always been a great performer until now, nicely shaped and it always established a leader branch as it reached skyward.
Kinda favors some hedge or locust...
99.9%Hedge
that scares the *s-word out of ya. had a bolt hit this locust about 100 feet from the house this summer. only about 25 feet from my brand new F-250.I remember when a bolt nailed the neighbors elm across the street from me when I was a kid. You would of thought a bomb hit it
At least it wasn't a total loss.
I paid a climber and his crew about $1,200 to drop it and chip the small branches. I had no intention of going 50' up. Then I went to work on the large stuff for the firewood business. In all, I might get to sell five truckloads of splits and recoup half of my tree removal expenses.
