Lightning hit one of my trees last week...

I notified my insurance company and they paid the cost to remove the tree, plus the cost to replace all electrical components, tv's, phones, computers, DirecTv equip, and a refrigerator that were affected. Keep in mind that some electrical components did not manifest an issue until months later. AND,That tree is way to close to a structure to wait to have it removed.

You likely have some time before the branches start to fall.

You're probably liable if anything gets damaged as the tree is obviously a peril.

Probably case-by-case, but anecdotally a pine tree in my parents' backyard got struck probably 18 years ago and it's still up today.

If it looks green and healthy next year, should be fine.

(But I wouldn't want pine trees within striking distance of my house healthy or not)

we had a large pine get struck about 50 ft away from the house. took out a small TV and fried the HDMI ports in another.

the tree started showing signs about 6-8 months later. this spring it wasn't greening up. so I took it out.

My nephew was taking out a tree for a guy, told the guy, might want to take this one out also. The guy said he’d wait, a little short on cash. Lightning hit that tree, last week. So, bring out all the equipment again.

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Neighbor's carport

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How is your neighbor that close to your tree ? Just the angle? I’d call and get an estimate at least, it’s free, and ask them if you wait if it gets any cheaper.

I see trees hunting all the time that were hit and in all phases. But I’ve also seen them crumbling.

The old family place on the Tx/La line a mile from the north end of Toledo Bend is thick with pines of all ages and sizes. In the 18+ years I lived there many trees got hit (luckily no damage to electrical ever, the closest thing was lightning traveling down the phone line in through the kitchen window of the old wood frame house my grandparents lived in and mom grew up in. That set the sink window curtains on fire that grandma just happened to be doing dishes in the sink at the time.)

ALL the struck pines survived but I did lose several very old oaks (ancestors used to hang metal objects on the oaks, some superstitious stuff about “luck”). Several of the pines have big nasty scars like your pictures so maybe you can get lucky?

Liberty Mutual is not as understanding when it comes to tree damage caused by lightning. I had 1 palm get struck a couple of months ago and it showed signs of it being dead immediately. A second palm tree about 20 feet away started to show signs a couple of weeks later. I spoke to Liberty Mutual and they only gave me $500 to remove the trees. That's the max they give for that. So...I'm out of pocket on the rest of it. Ironically, I have a crew here at the house removing these trees as I type this.

My guess is if you still have bark around it all the way up except for the spot in the picture it'll probably live. Seems like a fairly good sized tree.

Does it show any damage anywhere other than that long strip?