Fire damaged oak tree

[Fleetwood]

I have a problem with a fire damaged English oak tree. The neighbours shed burned down last month causing one side of the trunk to be blackened, but remarkably no damage to the branches above. It took an hour for the firemen to put it out but the shed was destroyed and the greenhouse exploded, so the fire was pretty intense, but fairly short.

 

The tree is about 60ft tall and the trunk is over two feet wide. The bark is pretty thick and only charred to a max depth of 2-3mm only on the bottom 8-10ft of the trunk. Higher up the tree was shielded from the heat. I know bark is a pretty good insulator but the live cambium is also pretty vulnerable. How can you tell how bad the damage is without waiting for months for the bark to fall off and the leaves to die? I would like to know how tolerant oaks are to fire damage of this sort.

 

The question is whether to fell it now and draw a line under this whole sorry mess or to wait months or years until the extent of the damage is clear, but 1) It may have to be felled anyway with the added costs/difficulty of felling it with a new shed and fence etc underneath. 2) Have the anxiety of living with a big tree that "may fall over" in a few years time and damage the house, for which the insurance company has already said it would not be covered. 3) The likelihood of significant unrecoverable additional costs of tree maintenance for many years to come.

 

There are a couple of pictures here:

oak tree - oaktree's Photos

I hope the link works ok

 

And can anyone send me any articles/papers or web-links on the subject of fire damage to trees that may be useful in this situation?

[kennyjames]

Have the trees managed to leaf out since the fire?. You can usually spot damage to part of the vascular system by the condition of the canopy. Many oaks are well-adapted to fire, but maples usually are not. Some pines are, though many just reseed after a fire.

 

If the vascular cambium is still intact under the bark, the tree should be able to recover. It is normal for the outer bark to come off over time. I would only remove bark that is loose.