When A Tree Has Come Down And It Cannot Wait Until Monday

Make safe first, remove second

These are two different jobs and they get confused constantly. Making a tree safe means stopping it doing any more damage: taking the load off a roof, cutting a hung-up limb down before it drops, roping or bracing a partly uprooted tree so it cannot go further, clearing a driveway so a car can get out, cordoning the area. It is triage, and it is what happens at three in the morning.

Removal and clean-up are the second visit, in daylight, with the right machine and a proper look at the drop zone. Splitting the two is not a way of charging twice. It is the only sensible way to work on a tree that is under load in the dark, and it is cheaper than the alternative, which is a crew making decisions by torchlight with a half-collapsed root plate they cannot see.

Why Fremantle trees come down when they do

Summer here is about the sea breeze. The Fremantle Doctor is steady, predictable, and mostly a reason for wind-sail thinning and crown reduction rather than a reason trees fail.

Winter is the problem. Cold fronts come in off the Indian Ocean with the fetch of the whole ocean behind them, they arrive with the ground already saturated, and they hit trees in full leaf. The local geology does the rest: shallow sandy soil over Tamala limestone means root plates spread wide across rock instead of anchoring deep, and wet sand around a shallow plate holds far less than it looks like it should. That combination — saturated sand, a shallow plate and a frontal gust — is how established trees in Fremantle, Bicton and Mosman Park come over, usually intact and usually all at once across the suburb.

The failures that follow a front are fairly consistent. Whole trees uprooted and lying across driveways or fences. Major limb failures out of big old figs and marris, often at an included union that has been weak for years. Norfolk Island pines shedding whole branch whorls. Limbs hung up in the canopy that did not reach the ground and are now waiting for the next gust to send them. And palm fronds and seed heads off Cocos and Washingtonias, which do not sound serious until one lands on a car bonnet.

Anything touching wires is Western Power's call first

This is the hard rule on this page and there is no flexibility in it.

If a tree, a limb or anything else is in contact with power lines, in contact with the service line to your house, or has brought wires down, ring Western Power on 13 13 51. That is their fault and emergency line and it operates around the clock. Do it before you ring a tree crew.

Treat every downed or sagging conductor as live, whether or not the power is off in the house. Keep people, children and pets well clear of the line and of anything it is touching, including fences and puddles. Do not try to move a branch off a wire with a pole, a rake or a rope. Do not drive over a line lying across a driveway.

No tree contractor can lawfully or safely cut a tree that is in contact with the network. Once Western Power has attended and made the line safe, the tree work can start. Ringing them first is not passing you around — it is the only order that works.

What to do, and what not to do, while you wait

Do move people and cars out from under the tree and keep them out, including the arc a hung-up limb could swing through. Close off any room under a damaged roof section. Photograph the tree, the damage and the surrounds from several angles before anything is touched, because that is the record your insurer will want. Put a tarp over an open roof only if it can be done safely from inside or from ground level. Ring early and describe the situation plainly.

Do not climb on the tree, onto the roof, or onto anything the tree is resting against. Do not cut a limb that is bent, pinned or holding weight — wood under tension releases violently and this is how people get seriously hurt in their own backyards. Do not pull a leaning tree with a car, a ute or a rope. Do not clear debris from around a trunk that is still leaning. And do not assume a tree that stopped moving has finished moving.

Insurance: what this site does and does not do

We do not lodge claims, we do not assess damage for insurers, and we do not invoice them directly. Enquiries here go to an independent contractor who quotes and carries out the work, and the account is between you and them.

What is worth knowing in general terms is that policies differ, so read yours or ring your insurer early. Most home policies respond to damage the tree did to the building rather than to the cost of removing the tree from the garden, and many require you to take reasonable steps to prevent further damage, which is precisely what a make-safe visit is. Photographs taken before anything moves and itemised invoices for both visits are the two things that make a claim straightforward. Ask your insurer before the clean-up, not after it.

Once the emergency is over

When the tree is down and the property is usable again, the ordinary rules apply. Sectional dismantling and clean-up are covered on the tree removal page, and the stump left behind is a separate job with its own depth questions. If a palm is involved, palms are crewed and priced differently.

The two things worth doing afterwards are usually overlooked. First, have the surviving trees looked at, because a front that took one tree out has loaded every other tree on the block, and an arborist inspection will find the cracked union or the lifted plate before the next front does. Second, check whether the tree that failed was on a council register before arranging anything permanent — the permits page covers Fremantle, East Fremantle, Melville and Cockburn, and storm damage does not automatically remove the obligation to ask.

Costs for storm work follow the same access and disposal variables as any other job, set out in the tree removal cost guide, with the difference that an out-of-hours call-out is priced as one. Crews cover Fremantle, East Fremantle, North and South Fremantle and the Melville and Cockburn suburbs on the service areas page. If it is happening right now, ring 08 7741 1934 rather than filling in the contact form.