Property or Structure Strike During Felling Response
Purpose
A felled section that clips a garage, a fence line, or the corner of a house is not the same event as a customer's roof damage from last week's storm, and it does not get handled the same way. This standard guarantees that when a cut you made puts wood into a structure, the crew's next ten minutes make the situation better, not worse: nobody re-enters an unassessed fall zone, a gas or electrical co-hazard gets checked before anyone touches debris, and the record built on site is the one the adjuster and the customer both get, not two different stories. Without it, a crew's instinct is to fix what they broke, which means cutting into a compromised roof edge or dragging debris off a wall before anyone has confirmed what is underneath it.
Scope
Any felling cut or top-down section drop where the falling piece contacts a structure outside the planned impact area - a house, garage, shed, detached structure, or fence, including a neighboring property's structure.
It does not cover a piece that strikes something while still under rigging control on a controlled lower, which is a rigging-failure event with a different root cause. It does not cover a structure already damaged by a tree before the crew arrived, which the storm response standard owns. It does not cover a vehicle strike, which the sibling vehicle-strike standard owns. And it does not cover the felling technique itself, drop-zone sizing, or notch and hinge cuts - that ground belongs to the tree removal service SOP; this standard starts at the moment of contact.
Roles and the handoff between them
| Role | What they own | What they hand off |
|---|---|---|
| Cutter or climber | The cut that produced the event, and the call to stop | A firsthand account of the lean, the wind, and the cut, before anyone else moves |
| Ground crew | Clearing personnel from the fall zone, checking for a co-hazard | The all-clear or the named hazard to the crew lead |
| Crew lead | Scene control, the customer conversation, the photo set | A written incident record and the resume-or-stand-down call |
| Office or owner | The insurance carrier, the claim, follow-up with the customer | The claim number and adjuster contact back to the crew |
Stop before anything else moves
If the strike breaches a roof, wall, or window into an occupied space, or if a gas meter, service mast, or electrical service drop is anywhere in the debris path, nobody cuts, drags, or clears anything until that hazard is named and cleared. Get every crew member out of the fall zone including out from under the tree itself, and if you cannot account for someone by sight and by voice within the time it takes to call their name twice, stop everything and go find them before doing anything else. Treat any downed or sagging line near the strike as energized until the utility confirms otherwise, per OSHA 1910.269 and this shelf's utility line clearance reference; if that confirmation does not come, the exclusion zone stays up and nobody approaches.
The procedure
Freeze the site the instant contact is heard or seen. The cutter kills the saw, the rigging crew stops the line, and everyone within earshot calls out "hold." Acceptance: engine silent and no rigging line moving within about ten seconds of impact. Wrong looks like a crew member finishing the current cut because the piece already landed. Stop rule: any cutting that continues after a strike is called ends that operation for the day and escalates straight to the crew lead. Hazard: the impact can leave a second piece hung or dislodged and still settling, so nobody walks under the canopy to look.
Account for every crew member by name and check for injury. The lead calls each name, gets an audible answer, and confirms position by sight. Acceptance: a full headcount matching the day's roster, zero unaccounted. Wrong looks like assuming everyone is fine because nobody screamed. Stop rule: any unaccounted person or any reported injury goes straight to a 911 call, ahead of any site assessment. Hazard: if the unaccounted person is near a downed line, nobody approaches until the utility clears it, per the block above.
Establish or expand the exclusion zone around the structure and the debris. Barrier a zone extending at least twice the height of what remains standing from the point of impact, and move the customer and any bystanders behind it. Acceptance: a physical barrier in place and the customer told, in plain words, why they need to stay back. Wrong looks like the homeowner walking up through the debris to inspect their own wall. Stop rule: anyone who enters the zone before it is cleared is escorted back out immediately, and work does not resume with an uncontrolled zone. Hazard: settling debris and hung limbs, which is why the barrier goes up before anyone else does anything.
Check for the three co-hazards before touching structure or debris: gas, electrical, and structural collapse. Walk the exterior gas line and meter for odor or a hiss, look for a severed or sagging service drop or panel damage, and look up for a roof section that is no longer supported. Acceptance: a specific "checked, none present" for each of the three, or a named hazard with the gas company, utility, or fire department already called. Wrong looks like "smells fine, probably okay" without actually walking the line. Stop rule: any one of the three stops all further crew action on the structure until the responsible utility or the fire department clears it; this is not the crew's call to make on its own. Hazard: an ignition source near a suspected gas leak - kill engines, no phones or lighters anywhere near it.
Photograph before anything moves. Take a wide shot of the full scene, a close-up of the point of impact, the cut or stub involved, and the visible structural damage from at least two angles. Acceptance: the photo set exists and is time-stamped before any debris is repositioned. Wrong looks like clearing wood away "to get a better look" first. Stop rule: if the crew lead is not yet on scene, the cutter or ground lead takes the photos rather than waiting. Hazard: do not stand under a compromised roof edge or overhang to frame the shot; shoot from clear ground.
Make direct contact with the customer or occupant before the account becomes secondhand. The crew lead states plainly what happened, what is being done next, and does not speculate about cause or fault before the office has the full picture. Acceptance: the customer spoken to in person, not left to hear it from a neighbor. Wrong looks like a defensive account that minimizes what occurred. Stop rule: if the customer cannot be reached and there is a structural breach, call the office immediately rather than leaving a voicemail and continuing the day. Hazard: keep the customer, including a customer eager to inspect, out from under any breached structure.
Secure the breach against weather; do not repair it. Where a roof or wall opening exists, tarp it and weight the edges against wind, without attempting a structural fix or a cosmetic patch. Acceptance: the opening is covered, the edges are secured, and a water test is run if rain is imminent. Wrong looks like nailing shingles back into place or improvising a structural repair. Stop rule: a breach the crew cannot safely reach or tarp from a ladder rated for that load and that edge is a same-day call to a roofer or contractor, not an attempt from a damaged edge. Hazard: ladder work against a structure whose load-bearing capacity is now unknown. Test the edge before committing weight to it: from the ladder, push down firmly with a gloved hand or a tool at the point you would first step, well short of full body weight, and watch and listen for give, cracking, or movement rather than trusting how it looks. Any give, sound, or visible flex at that light test means the edge does not hold your full weight either; do not go up, and this becomes the same-day roofer call above.
Route the incident to the office before the crew leaves site, and get a recorded resume-or-stand-down decision. The crew lead relays the photo set, the headcount, and the hazard findings, and the office states the next step out loud. Acceptance: a decision recorded with its reason, either resume today or stand down. Wrong looks like the crew deciding on its own to keep going because the rest of the tree still needs to come down. Stop rule: work does not resume on that same tree until the condition that caused the strike, a misread lean, an unexpected split, a wind gust, is understood and accounted for, because the next cut on unresolved footing repeats the error. Hazard: none new at this step, but the exclusion zone stays up while the decision is made.
The record this produces
Incident date and time, the full photo set, the headcount confirmation, the three co-hazard findings, a summary of the customer conversation, the claim and adjuster contact once assigned, and whether work resumed the same day and on what basis. This is what the office hands the adjuster, and it is what a crew lead six months later uses to answer "what actually happened" instead of guessing.
Worked pass: a wind-gust twist into a garage roof
A three-person crew is felling a 70-foot leaning oak in a backyard drop zone walked and marked that morning. A gust picks up mid-cut; the back cut releases and the tree twists off-line, and the top fifteen feet clips the corner of a detached garage roof.
Step 1 passes: the cutter kills the saw within a few seconds and calls hold. Step 2 passes: headcount of three confirmed, no injuries. Step 3 passes: the exclusion zone expands and the homeowner, who had stepped onto the back porch, is moved behind it.
Step 4 fails on the first attempt. The ground lead reports "smells fine, no gas" without actually walking the exterior line that runs along that same garage wall, which is exactly the judgment call the acceptance condition exists to prevent. The crew lead catches it and sends the ground lead back to physically walk the line to the meter. No leak is found, but the step is redone correctly before step 5 proceeds, because the first pass did not meet its acceptance condition.
Step 5 passes with the corrected order: photos taken once gas is confirmed clear. Step 6: the crew lead describes the gust and the twist to the homeowner directly, without speculating further. Step 7: the breach is a small triangular section, reachable and tarped from an extension ladder rated for the load. Step 8: the office opens a claim, and the decision is to stand down on the remainder of that tree for the day, since the same wind that caused the twist has not let up, with the rest rescheduled for a calm morning.
References
- See related: Tree Removal Service SOP, which owns the felling technique and drop-zone planning this response follows a failure of.
- See related: Vehicle Struck by Falling Limb or Debris Response SOP, for the vehicle-specific version of this event.
- See related: Storm Response and Emergency Tree Service SOP, for structure damage that already existed before the crew arrived.
- OSHA 1910.269, for treating a downed or sagging service line as energized until the utility confirms otherwise.
- ANSI Z133, in the edition your program has adopted, for exclusion zone and drop-zone practice this response resumes under once cleared.