Tree limb falls on park benches in Fairfield’s Central Park

FAIRFIELD — A giant limb from a tree in Fairfield’s Central Park came crashing down without warning Tuesday morning and fell on a couple of park benches, but nobody was there at the time.

The limb fell on a concrete bench and a green mobile bench in the northwest corner of the park at about 10:30 a.m. Fairfield Parks Director Pam Craff said the tree limb fell because it had become rotten.

“About 10 years ago, we lost a big limb out of it, and over the years, it developed rot from the rain and weather,” Craff said.

Craff said it was fortunate the limb fell when nobody was in the park. In fact, one of her employees had been mowing the park earlier that morning, so they were lucky it didn’t fall on him.

Since the collapse of the limb stripped bark off the tree down to its base, the parks staff decided to cut the whole thing down. Mark Brown arrived on the scene and had mostly finished removing the tree by Wednesday morning.

Craff said the city will likely replace the tree by planting another one. There are already two small trees on both sides of it.

In other news, Craff said her staff has nearly finished removing all ash trees from city parks, and that the last ones will be removed in the next year. The City of Fairfield, just like many other cities in the state and region, have been forced to remove ash trees after the arrival of the emerald ash borer nearly a decade ago that has been killing the trees.

Craff said the city is fortunate to have the Fairfield Elks plant trees in city parks every year, often planting 20-30 at a time.

The city’s parks continue to receive other upgrades, too, such as the new playground installed at O.B. Nelson Park over the winter. The next planned improvement is the installation of playground equipment at Lamson Woods. Craff said city staff put up a fence around the area Monday so that dirt work could begin.

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Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com

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