Pre-lit firewood

[Jere39]

Thursday evening, just as I sat down for dinner, a fast moving, violent thunderstorm rolled through. A lightning bolt put a direct strike on a large (26" DBH) Tulip Poplar at the edge of my lawn. The bark, and in many places the sap wood was stripped, and blasted in a 360 degree arc.


When the storm blew through, my pup and I went on inspection tour and saw the top (about 60' up) was smoldering and smoking. I decided I better keep an eye on it, but the storm had dumped plenty of rain, so our fire alert level was low.





Walked back out around 11:00 pm with my pup for our nightly property corner marking, and found the top of the tree was still burning pretty good, but didn't look dangerous - yet.

Around 2:00 am next morning (or later that night - your choice), I heard a significant thump, and took a walk down to find a 12' section of the top had burned through, and dropped to the ground. It didn't look like it was about to burn out. So, Scout and I hauled double 5 gallon pails of water to douse the burning log on the ground.

Watched it all the next day, and into the night. No more fallen stuff, but the top of the tree (well, what is the top now, is still smoldering.

Not that Poplar is very popular as a firewood, but who could resist pre-lit campfire wood?

 

[unclemoustache]

Tulip seems to burn pretty well when green. Inner wood burns before outer. Fascinating.

 

[gunny100]

hole crap werent you scared

 

[zogger]

Kinda slick! Sucks you had to go out and put the fire out, but still something unusual to remember years from now.

At least it wasn't dry out, then it would have sucked, caused a major fire.

 

[blacklocst]

That is the biggest swedish candle I've ever seen.

 

[Iska3]

Wow! Thanks for the pictures. I've had a few threes hit over the years, but never had any burn like yours.

 

[muddstopper]

Everytime lighting strikes around my place, it usually blown well pump, blown TVs and computers, and rewiring of my shop.

 

[Jere39]

Over the years I've had a few stikes pretty close. My son was hosting a teen party (he's 32 now), when a storm came up. The kids decided to sit in the garage with the double door open and watch the storm. Then lightning hit a tree about 75' from the garage and send a 20' spear of wood flying into the woods, in a different direction fortunately. They saw the damage the spear caused, and decided to come in the house. That tree did not burn, and two winters later, made good firewood for me.

This current Poplar is still smoldering today, the fourth day since the strike. Last evening when I checked it at around 11:00, is was still glowing red with embers, but no flames any longer.

 

[Deleted member 135597]

that's crazy that it's still smoldering

 

[GVS]

I've seen at least 2 trees hit by lighting,and several more that were hit but I didn't witness the strike.I also saw a utility pole get hit.When a tree gets hit it sure sends the "lumber" flying.I saw the results of a pine getting hit.I smoldered away for at least 2 days,a fireman checked on it every few hours.I've also had lighting strike the ground very close to me with no ill effects.

 

[Jerryv88]

I bet it was really loud when it hit. I haven't been close to the actual strike, but I have seen the aftermath a few times. It is impressive. Apparently the High amp electric current instantly boils the sap which turns to steam under high pressure and makes the tree explode.

It could be the ultimate high speed splitter, but sort of hard to control.

Jerry

 

[Oldman47]

Lightning is nothing to mess with.
One day long ago I ran outside to roll up the windows on a truck and there was a nearby lightning strike (zero time delay from flash to sound). The next thing I noticed was the rain cap drifting to earth from my neighbor's fireplace flue about 100 feet away. Needless to say I hurried back into the house.
Last Sunday, yesterday, we had a good storm that generated a small tornado a half mile away. Today the AC was not working and the repair guy was speculating it might have been hit by lightning in that recent storm. The motor starter capacitor was completely gone and he often sees that symptom after a good thunderstorm.

 

[Jere39]

Wednesday night the smoldering burst into flames again. It was still out of reach of my water pressure from my hose, so around midnight I drug a 12' step ladder to the end of my lawn, stretched 400' of ¾" garden hose out, zip tied the last 6' to a walking pole, climbed the ladder and hosed it down to kill the flames and glowing embers. About 2:00 am, I gave up, took a shower, and no sooner had I laid head to pillow, a thunderstorm rolled through and dropped almost 2¾" of rain over night.

Today I needed to mow, so just before I rolled up the hose, I laid down a good dousing, without the ladder, but with the pole.

It's out now, 8 days after the first fire.

Here is the back side of the tree:

 

[USMC615]

Lightning is nothing to mess with.
One day long ago I ran outside to roll up the windows on a truck and there was a nearby lightning strike (zero time delay from flash to sound). The next thing I noticed was the rain cap drifting to earth from my neighbor's fireplace flue about 100 feet away. Needless to say I hurried back into the house.
Last Sunday, yesterday, we had a good storm that generated a small tornado a half mile away. Today the AC was not working and the repair guy was speculating it might have been hit by lightning in that recent storm. The motor starter capacitor was completely gone and he often sees that symptom after a good thunderstorm.

Yep...lightning in close proximity to an outside condenser unit will get the start/run capacitor more times than not, especially if the capacitor has any age on it. It'll do the same on start/run capacitors for the blower fan motor on the inside/air handler side as well.