maple bark damage

[Miss V]

Hi everyone, I'm new and I have a BIG problem. We bought our house seven years ago. One of the reasons that we bought this particular house was because it has a gorgeous big maple tree in the front yard. Two years ago we were having a cook out and my NitWit-brother-in-law threw hot grease on my tree. Last summer the bark started to come loose and we noticed that there were a few branches that didn't leaf well.
I was hoping that it would heal up without any help,but now a lot of the bark is coming off and I'm worried. Please tell me that I can fix it. Thank you.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

the problem is that trees do not heal, or regenerate old tissue. Once there is a wound that defect is always there and all the tree can do is slowly close it up by generating new tissue over it.

In this case the hot grease boiled the water in the vascular tissue caused local dieback. Due to loss of fluids the branches above the injury seem to have died back too.

This sumer you may need to prune out the dead limbs this year. As to the Sustainable Useful Life Expectancy, you would need to have a local professional look at the tree.

Go to this web site for a consulting arborist.

http://www.asca-consultants.org/

It is in your best interest to have a person look at it for a fee that would have no interest in any future work. A tree company of low integrity could tell you that it needs to come down for their best interest.

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

Trees are very much like poeple, only it takes longer to show the effects of damaging actions.
What you need to do is a little experiment.
Have your bother-in-law stand in the driveway while you trow hot grease on him.
Stand back and watch his reactions, notice how he scars up over the next few weeks, this will be very much like the long term effects it will have on the tree...