Removal of lightning-struck tree turns into all-day project

Wood chips to be used as ground cover in future parks developments

Hugh McMillan

Special to the Gateway

During a lightning storm last month, a 150-foot Douglas fir took a very serious hit. A bolt of lightning struck it about 20 feet below its top and spiraled some 35 feet down, shearing off large chunks that took out part of a fence protecting a horse paddock off McEwan Road in Home.

Kip Clinton, owner of the facility, said the tree was “too badly damaged to save.” She called Archon Tree Service to bring a crane and take it down.

Earlier this month, they did.

The operation, which was expected to take two to four hours, got underway at 8 a.m. and didn’t end until shortly before dusk. The crew dubbed it, “The all-day tree.” None could remember a more arduous operation.

A crane with enormous lifting power and a reach of more than 100 feet was an essential part of the exercise.

Crew leader Tim Lund worked his way up the tree with retaining line and leg irons and sliced off large branches one after the other with his powerful chain saw. Each branch was then shredded and its residue loaded aboard a truck by crew members Mark Jones, Sam Yem, Tim Talahan and Archon Tree Service owner and president Brian Allen.

The loaded truck trundled off to Key Peninsula’s Volunteer Park, where it was unloaded to be used as ground cover in future park projects.

Clinton, a member of the Key Peninsula Metro Parks Board, said, “nothing is going to go to waste.”

When Lund reached the lowest portion of the lightning-damaged trunk, it proved necessary to bring in the crane to lift him past the unstable lightning-stripped area. He continued to drop branches until he reached about the final 20-foot-tall “Christmas tree” at its top.

Lund then rappelled to earth for a sip of water and a moment of “de-tensing.” He’d been aloft for more time than any in the crew thought would be required.

When he was finished with his break, Lund returned to the job aloft and, with the precision of a diamond cutter, dropped the “Christmas tree” exactly where the crew had determined it must land to ensure it didn’t break any ground-level fixtures.

Lund then dropped whole sections of the tree’s trunk in lengths of 15 to 25 feet, each precisely where he intended with the assistance of a line attached to its top and tugged on by the crew.

The final touch was aiming the last section of its 14-foot-long, 5-foot-thick base to land where it could be removed, loaded on a logging truck along with the other sections, then moved to a lumber yard. The last section weighed about 7,200 pounds.

Crew members said the tree could have brought in a substantial sum a couple years ago, but with the depressed housing market — and therefore, lumber — it wouldn’t fetch nearly as much.

Clinton marveled at the path the lightning took.

“It’s amazing how the bolt hit the tree about a quarter way from the top and spiraled down to about halfway down the tree, then jumped to the ground, ran along an extension cord I had up there, to the edge of the fence near an aluminum gate, jumped across the wood fence, into the ground, ran and killed the flowers along the path, blew and turned the soil and blew a football-sized hole in the edge of the pavement,” she said.

Hugh McMillan is a longtime freelance writer for The Peninsula Gateway. He can be reached at 253-884-3319 or by e-mail at hmcmnp1000@centurytel.net.