Look around your home. You may have huge trees that you love and provide good habitat for wildlife. But every tree eventually dies. If one of your trees died or was blown down, how would that affect your house?
Chuck Welch, a local resident who has been a volunteer fireman and disaster relief worker for years, said people need to be aware of trees around the house. If you have a 70-ft.-tall tree, how will it impact your house if it falls?
In Eureka Springs winds typically come from southwest, so trees fall to northeast.
“Walk around the house and realize that the trees on the southwest are the biggest danger,” Welch said. “We had an EF1 tornado here a couple months ago that shows how many trees can be blown over in a storm like that. In addition to the entire tree falling over, big limbs that drop can also cause a lot of damage. Walnuts drop limbs. The oaks, if they die off, the branches get wet and heavy. We also lost a lot of trees in the ice storm in 2009.”
There is a lot of concern about oak trees dying off because of an aggressive fungus disease that is killing thousands of oak trees in the eastern U.S. Welch said oak trees can seem fine, but when you see bark falling off and tips turning brown, that is a bad sign, and they can be perfectly green and go brown in a week.
“I’ve seen that happen at my house,” Welch said. “And most trees as they grow up, the lower branches are shaded and die and fall off. It damages your house when it falls. Branches can punch a hole in your roof. Look at where you live. If you have a tree canopy over your house, you need to watch the dead growth, and remove anything that can damage your house.”
Trees in our area can be more prone to falling over due to rocky soils
“The issue with the amount of rock in the ground is the roots don’t necessarily go deep,” Welch said. “When Hurricane Ike came through, straight line winds just blew the trees down. When trees are blown over, you can often see the roots were basically close to the surface.”
Welch recommends keeping a clear space around your house of at least 50 feet, which includes keeping leaves raked up. Don’t forget to also remove leaves and pine needles from underneath decks. He recalls a fire here a few years ago when welding sparks set leaves under a deck on fire, destroying the house.
“The main source of fires in the winter is people putting out wood ashes from fireplaces and wood stoves,” Welch said. “They can be sitting in a container for several days and you think they are out. But if you put them out, they can start a fire. Another hazard is charcoal embers from a grill on a deck can fall out and set the deck on fire.”
Welch said tree safety is just common sense. In addition to falling trees damaging a home, trees close to a home can also be a fire hazard. The Arkansas Firewise program, which the Eureka Springs Fire Department participates in, outlines specific strategies for improving the defensible space – an area 30-300 ft. around the home and surrounded forested areas – to improve safety not just for individual homes, but the entire community.
But one plus is that this area of the country is less prone to catastrophic fires than California and other areas out West, just with the difference in vegetation.
“We have mostly hardwoods,” Welch said. “You won’t see the fires here seen in Portugal and California because we mainly have hardwoods. What I’ve seen of fires here is they are fairly slow moving and the flames don’t reach super heights like they did in the big fire in Yellowstone”
Two major factors impact wildfires: fuel and wind. When the Arkansas Forestry Commission responds to a wildfire in the woods here, they cut an eight- to ten-ft. perimeter around it.
“If it’s not windy, that will stop the fire,” he said. “With a Grassy Knob fire a few years ago, we had 25 mph winds, and 40-ft.-high dead trees were on fire from bottom to top. Forestry had to redo fire lines twice because of fire jumping the fire line.”
It can save a lot of damage to prune the limbs of trees overhanging a home or other building. Welch said while people cringe at the expense, look at the deductible on your insurance.
“Anything you spend up to the deductible is better than having a claim and your rate goes up,” Welch said. “Look at it from a dollars and cents perspective.”
Local tree removal contractor Bob Messer said it could be hard to know when to trim or remove a tree near your home.
“It’s a crap shoot,” Messer said. “A big wind comes through, and the ones you were worried about are still standing. But a big, handsome specimen blows over. We do work for people all the time who want to prevent a potential problem because of concerns that if a certain tree blew over, it would wreck the house. But I don’t recommend to people what trees to take down. I don’t want to scare people and often it is hard to know which trees might be dangerous.”