Douglas Fir value: your guestimation - burned in fire

[M.D. Vaden]

A lady I did small pruning for like hedges etc., saw me in the grocery store tonight. She said several months ago, the neighbors fireworks ignited her juniper hedge and trees. She got an arborist who was working nearby to remove it, and they gave her a value. I think it may be low.

Not sure what the exact report was, but seems the arborist maybe close to $6800 with the insurance company. Its been years since I messed around with tree values and devaluating factors. I told her not to rush and give this a few more weeks. Here is what she lost.

Douglas fir >> Excellent health. Native. 80' tall and 21" DBH. Plenty of room to grow in the front yard, about 12' from the sidewalk.

Shore pine >> Next to it. About 18" DBH if memory serves me right. 30' tall. Good health. No breakage.


For some reason I'm thinking the Douglas fir alone must be worth $5000 or $6000.

This is pretty much why I tell people not to put junipers or arborvitae next to houses. And in her case, they were not next to the house, but out a ways, which was very good.

 

[jomoco]

I'd ask George.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1082724/1/index.htm

He's the American tree king!

jomoco

 

[treeseer]

Yeah, George knows...board-foot maybe.

Mario, what is the assignment?

 

[M.D. Vaden]

Yeah, George knows...board-foot maybe.

Mario, what is the assignment?

No real assignment for me.

I've known this lady for quite a few years, and would like to be able to give her a tad bit of feedback about whether she should settle for near $7000, or offer her some friendly advice to aim for a higher settlement, maybe even hire another arborist, like a consulting arborist.

She had a well established juniper hedge groomed and about 70 feet long x 8 feet wide. And a beautiful "80" foot Douglas fir, although I suspect 50 feet, and a nicely formed shore pine, then they got torched by this fire. It was cut down, then when it was realized that it was a need to know the size, they added up the cut trunk which was next door. I can see it on Bing birds-eye and it looks well under eighty. But I'm certain they got the DBH right, and a few inches under if anything.

Personally, my gut instinct tells be the Douglas fir alone must be worth at least 6K.

It would take here about $2000 to even begin to start on the hedge alone. And I can't see her shore pine being worth less than $3000.

If those were mine, I'd be holding out for no less than 11K to 12K. Sure glad she didn't loose the big deodar cedar back in the corner.

In this image, the yellow lines point to the taller Doug fir, the pine to the right of it, and just the short portion of the juniper hedge, which wraps around to the right and out of sight. Her Doug fir was one of the better conifers in that neighborhood.

I don't have any literature anymore, but was a pretty good judge of location and condition. What's a square inch worth these days? For some reason, I seem to recall Doug fir being at least an 80% species here.