Thread: Lightening Struck timber - is it any good?

I dont think there is a definitive answer to this but suspect most of the Ledgends about this are exactly that ledgends/ wifestails.
Loking at the event and how it kills the tree might give us a better answer to the question
I think there are 2 ways that the lightning kills, one is the action of the liquid sap being heated and turned to steam inside the wood cells rupturing millions of them in an instant and in extreme examples literally blowing the tree or part of it apart violently.
The other killer is as the current tries to go to ground (both literally and electrically) it trevels along the thousands of tiny roots of the tree destrowing them by heat etc and rendering the tree unable to absorb moisture as it needs from he soil.
Trees are often hit by lightning and only sometime does it kill them and often only kills a part of them.
Going on this observation I would think that some of the timber would be damaged and some would be fine if milled and dried correctly.
I suspect some of the ledgend about lightning wood not even able to be used as firewood is a load of old bollocks I have heated my house all winter with this type of timber and it burns just fine as you would expect.



Ross

We're about to find out......a large eucalypt on our property was struck about 6 months ago. It blew off a strip of bark all the way down the tree, and since about 80% now appears dead it will have to come down (tree hangs over a road, and is already dropping some dangerous-sized bits)

I've been told the same things re. no good for firewood, etc. I think the main issue is possibly people thinking the timber will have been 'dried' by the heat of the strike, when in fact the majority is still VERY green. It was a healthy, living tree only a few months ago !

I believe that if the timber is cut and dried in the normal way, and treated as though it was absolutely green when cut, should be just fine for firewood. We'll be chipping some of it for mulch, but the rest should be good firewood in 1-2 winters' time.

Hi Zoot
A guy once gave me a complete Silky Oak tree which was 650mm in dia. and 6m high and had been struck, I went out in my crane truck to pick it up and apart from dying looked fine, when I got it back to the shop and started milling, the planks just fell apart. Closer inspection indicated the strike had boiled the sap bursting all the cell structure, made good firewood though.
Regards
John

Hey Zoot - just noticed you are in Mossy, just up the road from us (Bundanoon)....

Its a small world, apparently...

Greetings Mr Brush, if you go the back way to Moss Vale you probably drive right past our farm. We are on the corner of Mt Broughton Rd and Nowra Rd.

The tree I am looking at was struck the same way that yours was ... strip blown out right down the side and it died completely. Worst thing was however that 3 cows sheltering under the tree were also struck and died instantly. Big burial hole!

Cheers
Alan

Different & Ravna ... thank you for your comments. My hope is that as the tree did not completely blow up and just a strip blown out, some of the wood may be OK. I was puzzled with the silky oak, perhaps the cell structure is a bit different?
Anyway I need to get the tree dropped ... too big for me to handle & I don't want it to fall on any of our cattle, so when it's down I will have a sample slabbing and see if it is worthwhile tackling the rest.

Cheers,
Alan

I've attempted to use struck yellow box as firewood over the years, but found that although it would burn it really didn't have the heat in it that good dry timber had.
Like others I was always told it never makes good firewood, & I won't use it if I have a choice.
No idea about it's quality for woodwork

Alan - sorry to hear about your cows. We were lucky, as ours were in another paddock at the time.

As an aside, I've heard a theory to explain why some cows standing near a lightning strike are killed while some are not. An animal facing the point the strike goes to ground will have a substantial voltage between front legs and back legs, current flows, cow dies. Another animal standing roughly sideways-on (i.e. front and back legs about the same distance from the grounding point) will survive, as there is only a very small voltage difference across the animal......might be another urban myth in the making !

I'll PM you to find out exactly where you are - I must drive right past your place 2 or 3 times a week.

hey zoot
in my experience a piece made from a lightning struck tree seems to sell faster??
being lightning struck seems to add to the percieved value of the wood,
maybe it's the romantic notion that the tree died of natural causes or something,
or that it's rare,
if you walk along any treed ridgeline around here you'll find lots of trees that have been blasted,

This Lemon Scented Gum milled a few weeks back was supposedly lightening struck.

If lightening strikes a tree directly, the degree it is affected depends on many things. The size of the tree is one and the voltage (they are not all the same) involved is another. Smaller voltages can be carried by larger trees down the sapwood and bark with little affect on the timber - that is what I think happened on that lemon scented tree above. In contrast small trees can be blasted apart by larger voltages. Even if they look OK at first they will fall apart when milled or drying. If they are still together after that you should be OK.

I have friends in the SES and when they have to cut down a tree with a chainsaw they take about 4 chainsaws because the timber becomes so hard and sends the saw blunt and they also say it's no good for firewood. So i would say if it sends a chainsaw blunt it could wreak chisels or wood turning tools

i milled 3 trees for a bloke last year 3 spotty gums one of witch had been struck by lightning.

blew all the gear in his house.

the all milled the same and looked the same.

so id say Fulse

So would it be fair to say, that maybe the species of tree makes a difference as to how it handles a lightning strike?

probly.

everything else varies between species.