The city of Sammamish Public Works Streets and Maintenance crew will be removing four large, dangerous fir trees from the right-of-way in front of 21415 SE 8th St. on Thursday, Feb. 1.

After consulting with an arborist, the city of Sammamish strongly suspected that the four large fir trees were infected with laminated root rot and thus needed to be removed. After removal of the four trees, crews will be making soil and mulch improvements to prolong the overall health of the remaining eight trees that were assessed.

“The Public Works crew always looks at tree removal as a last resort,” said Public Works Director Steve Leniszewski. “However, in this case removal was a necessary option to maintain the health of surrounding trees, and provide for the public’s safety.”

During the tree removal, on Feb. 1, Southeast 8th Street between 218th Avenue Southeast and 214th Avenue Southeast will be closed between 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. The subsequent soil improvements will not require road closures, but may result in minor traffic impacts from flagging.

Laminated root rot is a disease of coniferous trees caused by two closely-related infectious fungi, Phellinus sulphurascens and Phellinus weirii. P. sulphurascens preferentially infects Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii). Sammamish, as a city has a substantial amount of mature tree canopy that is vulnerable to LRR (i.e. Douglas Fir). For more information on laminated root rot, and the work the city is doing to address this issue, visit the city website.