Lightning struck tree

Week ago Friday, lightning struck the 45' Sycamore in front of our house. DW was looking out the front windows when it happened - said it looked like July 4th.

One computer monitor went into a "red light" condition, but seemed to be ok the next day. U-Verse shut down for about 20 minutes.

Tree blew some bark off, but since we were in such a heavy rain storm at the time, I'm hoping the exfoliation is the only damage.

Bought and spread 5# of Copperas around the feeder roots - guess we will have to wait for spring leaf buds to know if it will survive.

Any & all suggestions are welcome.

No good cures for lightning strikes after they happen. Normal tree health practices (appropriate fertility, moisture in droughty times, etc.) will be beneficial. It is probably as good as anything that this happened during dormancy rather than when in full growth - the rapid expansion of liquids in a tree's vascular system when presented with this type of charge/heat really can blow a tree to bits internally.

If your tree weathers (!) this shock (!), and you wish to give it better protection in the future, invest in some arboricultural assistance and have a good lightning protection system installed.

Post some pictures (when stormy weather is absent) here, and we'll all see some progression - and maybe learn something.

Thanks, VV.

A friend who works for a nearby city (Publuc Service), told me his experience with such sycamores is 6 - 18 months life expectancy.

I reckon your mileage may vary. Trees struck during the growing season fare much worse - sometimes not even surviving the immediate strike due to the severe vascular damage. Other trees merely exhibit the split down the trunk/bark where the electricity traveled to the ground.

A dormant tree may very well continue on with life, close the current wound, and show no long term ill effects - especially if all else is OK and no further insults take place. I know of many large old trees in the parks in Louisville (where I work) that show just this kind of condition - sycamores, oaks, tuliptrees, etc. - and they are living long lives.

Keeping an eye on it is a good plan.

It could have been so much worse . . .

Translation of the label placed in front of the trunk

"On the 6th of October 1993 around 10h15, in one fraction of a second, 40 cubic metres of wood were blown to pieces : the lightning killed a giant tree planted around 1870. Some pieces were sent to more than 300 metres away into the property of the US Embassy, origin country of this tree.

Species : Sequoiadendron giganteum (Lindley) J. Buchholz
Circumference of the trunk : 8 metres at 1 m height from the ground
Total height : 30 metres

From the family of the Taxodiaceae, the Giant Sequoia is the most imposing of all conifers. It is to be found in many parks in Geneva, but it will never have the opportunity to live the incredible adventure of more than 3,400 years which some specimens of the Sierra Nevada (California) have experienced. It was the fashion tree as early as 1850, like the Cedar of Lebanon was 30 years before."