Lightning hit my tree — is it going to die, and is it safe to be under? — what should I do?

A strip of bark blown off, usually spiraling down one side from the top toward the ground, sometimes with bark and wood thrown 50 feet or more across the yard and scorching at the edges of the exposed wood. Also look for a split trunk, blown-out soil or lifted turf at the base where the current exited through the roots, cracked limbs hanging in the canopy, and — several days later — leaves wilting and browning on one side while the rest of the tree looks untouched. Some strikes leave almost nothing visible: a thin line and a smell. Current passed through the tree, superheated the moisture in its path, and blew tissue apart under steam pressure. The outcome depends on where the current traveled. Along the outside under the bark, and the tree loses a stripe of cambium and often survives. Through the middle of the trunk, and the wood is fractured internally and the tree is finished whether or not it leafs out next spring. From the ground on the day of the strike you cannot tell which happened. So a struck tree is two things at once: an immediate physical hazard from loose bark and cracked limbs, and a medium-term unknown.