Is It Safe to Remove a Tree Touching Power Lines?

No. If any part of the tree is in contact with a power line, the job is not safe for you to do, and it is not safe for a general tree crew that has not been cleared to work around energized conductors. The line can still be live even when it looks dead, and a tree that is touching it can carry current into the trunk, the limbs, and anything you set a ladder against.

• Do not touch the tree, the line, or anything metal that is in contact with either.
• Do not cut the limb that is touching the wire. Cutting changes the load on the line and can bring the conductor down or pull it into you.
• Keep people and pets well back from the trunk and from any downed or sagging conductor.
• Call the utility that owns the line first. In most cases that is the number on your bill, not a tree service.

The rest of this page explains what the utility handles, what a tree service handles, and what to look at before anyone starts cutting.

A tree that is merely near a line and a tree that is touching one are two different jobs, and the difference is not the size of the tree. It is the contact. Once a limb is resting on a conductor, the tree becomes part of the electrical path. The line may be energized at distribution voltage, and the tree may be wet, which makes the path better, not worse for you.

Contact also changes the mechanics. A limb that is resting on a wire is being supported by that wire. When you cut it, the weight it was carrying transfers somewhere: to the line, to the rest of the tree, or to the ground. That is why the cut that looks simplest is often the one that drops a conductor onto a driveway, a roof, or a person. A tree that has grown into the line for years may also have the wire running through the canopy, so the conductor is hidden until you are already in the tree.

There is a third difference: permission. The line and the strip of ground around it usually belong to the utility, and the utility has its own rules about who may work inside that strip and how. Cutting a tree in that strip without the utility's involvement can put you on the wrong side of those rules even when nothing goes wrong.

The utility owns and controls the line, and it is the only party that can make the conductor safe to work around. That is the dividing line. The utility can de-energize the line, cover it, or move it, and it can tell you what it will and will not do on your property. Until someone with that authority has acted, no cutting should happen near the contact point.

Once the line is made safe, or once the utility has confirmed the work falls outside its responsibility, the tree itself is a tree job. That is where we come in. Removing a tree that has grown into a line is not the same as removing a tree in an open yard. It may involve rigging limbs down in sections, working from a bucket or from the tree with a climb line, and controlling where every piece lands. The utility's role and ours do not overlap: they control the electricity, we control the tree.

In practice the sequence is usually: you call the utility, they assess the tree and the line, they either clear the contact or tell you the tree is yours to handle, and then the removal gets scheduled. If the utility clears its portion and leaves the rest, the remaining tree may be left in an awkward, unbalanced shape, which can make the removal harder than it would have been before.

Stand where you are already safe, well back from the tree, and look up along the line rather than at the trunk. Contact is often obvious from a distance and invisible from underneath. Use these checks, and do not move closer to confirm any of them.

• A limb resting on the conductor, with the wire dipping under its weight.
• Bark worn, stripped, or polished in a line where the wire has been rubbing.
• Branches growing up through the wires, so the conductor passes through the canopy.
• A conductor that sags lower on one side of the tree than the other.
• Scorch marks, a burned smell, or a buzzing, crackling, or humming sound near the tree.
• A limb that has already broken and is hung up in the wires rather than on the ground.
• Any downed wire anywhere on the property, whether or not a tree is involved.

If you see or hear any of these, treat the tree and the line as live and stay back. Do not test contact by throwing something at the limb, and do not send anyone up to look.

Keep the area clear and let the utility take the first step. Move people, pets, and vehicles away from the tree and from the path a limb or wire could fall along. Do not park under the canopy. Do not stand in a doorway or on a porch directly beneath the line. If a conductor is down on the ground, keep everyone far back and call the utility; a downed line can energize the ground around it, and the safe distance is greater than most people guess.

If the tree is on a structure, such as a limb resting on a roof or a service drop pulled tight against a wall, say so when you call. That detail changes what the utility sends and how the job is sequenced. If the tree is leaning toward the line rather than resting on it, mention that too: a lean that is still moving is a different problem from a limb that has settled.

Do not try to pull a limb off a wire with a rope, a pole, or a vehicle. Do not cut the tree down to make the contact go away. The contact is the reason to stop, not the reason to hurry.

Once the line is out of the picture, the removal follows a sequence, and the sequence matters more on a tight site than an open one.

1. Look at the whole tree, not just the part that was in the wires: lean, deadwood, cracks, included bark, and how the root flare sits in the ground.
2. Identify the drop zone and the escape routes, and decide which way the tree can safely go or whether it has to come down in pieces.
3. Set rigging if the tree cannot be felled in one direction: ropes, blocks, and a controlled lower for each section.
4. Work from the top down, taking the limbs that carry the most weight first, so the trunk is left in a shape that can be managed.
5. Lower or drop the trunk sections, then clear the wood and the brush from the site.

The hard parts are access, lean, and what is underneath. A tree with a clear lawn on the fall side is a straightforward job. A tree hemmed in by a fence, a shed, a driveway, or a second tree is slower, and the crew may need to rig every piece rather than let anything fall free. Deadwood in the canopy raises the risk for whoever climbs it, because dead limbs can fail under a climber's weight without warning.

Ask the utility first, and get the answer in plain terms: will they clear the contact, will they remove the whole tree, or will they leave the tree to you once the line is safe? Get that answer before you ask anyone to cut. Then ask the removal questions that decide how the job is done.

• Who is making the line safe, and when will that be confirmed before cutting starts?
• How will the limbs over the line be handled: lowered by rigging, or dropped in a clear area?
• Where will the wood and brush go, and is anything left on site?
• What happens if the tree turns out to have more deadwood or a worse lean than it looked from the ground?
• What does the quote cover, and what would change it?

The cost of a removal like this depends on the tree's height and species, how much of it is dead, how close it sits to the line and to structures, how much of it has to be rigged rather than felled, and how the debris is handled. Those are the things that move the number. The number itself needs an on-site look, because no one can price a tree they have not seen. If you are in the Rockford area and the utility has told you the tree is yours to handle, call us at (815) 555-0142 and we can look at it and tell you what the removal involves.