Burning Tree

Is that a firetruck emerging from the back of Mike and Bonnie's barn? Yes, it is. And here's the story of how it got there.

We had a rip-roaring thunderstorm about 5 a.m. yesterday morning, with some fierce thunder and lightning; I recall on very loud explosion that seemed quite close, which takes on significance later.

Later Sunday morning Bonnie kept saying she smelled something burning, and finally on the screened porch I caught a scent of it too and suggested we go walk around the rental house. The renters were gone for the weekend, and I was concerned something might have happened at the house. I went ahead and walked around the rental's yard and didn't see anything. As I was passing the barn on the way back, however, I saw smoke drifting across the valley from behind the smaller of our barns. I cut through the barn lot and saw the big sycamore behind it was pouring off smoke at its base. Several feet up the trunk was hot to the touch. Bonnie called the local volunteer fire department and we had a guy here within five minutes and a fire truck within ten.

They hooked up the hose and shot water into the base. Then they figured out that they needed to open the tree up to they could spay up and down. They used enough water that they had to summon a tank truck with a large water supply. More holes were cut, more water was sprayed, firemen and pickup trucks accumulated (nine firemen eventually and about as many pickups). After about an hour of these proceedings it was felt the tree was adequately cooled and the firemen returned to their Sunday morning pursuits. We were very appreciative of them and felt good that we could muster about half the township's male population on short notice.

The popular assumption was that the tree would die from the lightning and the burning. We'll see; we have another sycamore that has survived a strike but had no burning. You could see a vein of blasted bark where the bolt traveled down the tree to where it ignited the dry rot at the hollowed out base.

And that was our excitement for the weekend.