Lightning strike

[Wolfie]

This happened Thursday 6th July.

It's blown a column of bark from the trunk as it's traveled down the sapwood, plus a small patch off the opposite side of the tree.

Having not had much experience with lightning stuck trees, I was looking for advice from the more knowledgable peeps here as to whether the heart wood tends to get fractured or whether it tends to just be surface damage?

 

 

 

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[David Humphries]

Can be both in my experience.

 

Possibly depends on power of the strike, species and whether there is already an internal fault within the wood.

 

The small patch on the other side of your pine trunk may indicate that the extent of damage has gone through the trunk at that point.

 

 

 

 

The oak in post 2 of this old thread suffered a significant strike which blew a couple of meters off the top of the tree but the heart of the trunk didn't fracture.

 

Whereas I've seen pops and ash that have split through the core longitudinally

 

http://arbtalk.co.uk/forum/fungi-pictures/38875-lightning-damage-fungi.html

 

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Edited July 10, 2017 by David Humphries

[Steve Bullman]

You can see lightning struck trees everywhere if you look hard enough with longitudinal well healed over wounds. Like David said though, they can equally cause a massive amount of unseen internal damage. Worth monitoring closely looking at the location of the tree, although im not sure what method of monitoring can tell what damage has been done internally..I doubt any in the short term?

[David Humphries]

...........Worth monitoring closely looking at the location of the tree, although im not sure what method of monitoring can tell what damage has been done internally..I doubt any in the short term?

 

Tomography or micro drill could probably pick up on a longitudinal split caused by a lightning strike by ascertaining whether the tree has a delaminated trunk across the section where its tested.

 

and at a more basic level the use of a nylon hammer may be able to pick up on a change in resinance from a split

 

 

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[Peasgood]

I have one oak tree in particular here with similar damage, my tree had a complete strip of bark taken off from top to botttom. I suspect in time your tree will too have a complete strip missing as the actual damage becomes apparent.

Mine was hit maybe 30+ years ago, the tree is still fine apart from the missing bark.