Emergency Tree Service in Lexington, MA: 24/7 Storm Response

If a tree just came down in Lexington — house, car, road, power lines — call (978) 375-2272 right now. We are about 20 minutes from town, we answer 24/7, and we have full insurance documentation built into every emergency job. (If you are reading this with a maple currently parked in the kitchen, scroll back up, dial, then come back later. The article will keep.) The rest of this page is for after the immediate crisis is handled: what it costs, what insurance covers, when the Tree Bylaw still applies, and how the next nor'easter goes a little smoother. I'm Keith McDonald, and emergency response is what we run from the Billerica yard every storm season — the phone rings, the truck starts, the radio still only catches one AM station.

The Immediate Cost — Lexington Emergency Pricing

Situation	Typical Cost	Response Window
Small tree across driveway or yard	$500 – $800	Same day
Medium tree on fence, shed, or car	$800 – $1,500	Same day, often within hours
Large tree on house or garage	$1,500 – $4,000+	Within 1 hour
Tree blocking the road	$500 – $1,200	Within 1 hour
Large hanging branch (immediate hazard)	$300 – $700	Same day
Crane-assisted emergency	$2,500 – $5,000+	Same day, weather permitting

Emergency work runs 25 to 50% above a scheduled removal of the same tree. We are mobilising a crew after hours, sometimes in active weather, often near downed wires. We do not add extra for nights, weekends, or holidays — the price above is the price at 2am on Sunday during a nor'easter. Same crew, same number, same coffee.

What Counts as a Tree Emergency

Not every tree on the ground is an emergency. The distinction matters because emergency pricing is higher, and most homeowners are better served by saving the fee on the jobs that can wait.

Call us right now if:

• A tree or large limb is on a house, garage, or other occupied structure
• A tree is on a vehicle, especially with someone inside
• A tree is blocking your only road access
• A tree is on or near downed power lines (call Eversource 1-800-592-2000 first)
• A tree is actively leaning and about to fall on something
• A large limb is hanging in the canopy and could drop at any moment

Schedule it for normal cleanup (cheaper) if:

• The tree fell in the yard and hit nothing important
• The trunk is on the ground but no structures or wires are involved
• Limbs are down but the tree is stable
• Storm-damaged but still standing and not leaning

If you are not sure, call us. We will tell you over the phone in 30 seconds whether you have an emergency or a Saturday-morning job — and we will not push you toward the emergency rate if you do not need it.

What to Do in the First Ten Minutes

1. Stay away from the tree. A tree on the ground can shift without warning. Limbs under tension can spring loose with deadly force when something gets cut wrong.
2. Assume every downed wire is live. If power lines are involved, do not touch the tree, the lines, or anything in contact with them. Call Eversource at 1-800-592-2000 first.
3. Photograph everything. Wide shots, close shots, license plates of damaged vehicles, the room or angle inside the house if a tree breached the roof. Take twenty pictures, not three. Your insurance adjuster will be grateful.
4. Call your insurance company. Get a claim number and ask whether they have a preferred mitigation process. Most do not require it for emergency tree removal, but a few do.
5. Call us at (978) 375-2272. Tell us what fell, what it hit, whether power lines are involved, and whether anyone is hurt. We will dispatch from the Billerica yard within minutes.

Response Time — What 20 Minutes Actually Means

Our yard is on Sycamore Lane in Billerica. Lexington is 20 minutes in normal traffic via Route 4 or Route 225. During an active storm event, road closures, downed trees on the route, or accident-blocked exits can stretch that to 45 minutes or an hour. We pre-stage crews when the National Weather Service issues a watch for our service area — that drops the average response time to under 30 minutes during storms, because we are already moving. (My idea of "ready for a nor'easter" is the truck pointed downhill and the chainsaws sharpened by Wednesday.)

For non-storm emergencies — a dead tree finally letting go, a sudden lean after a heavy rain, a branch that broke overnight — we are typically on-site within an hour of the call, day or night.

Insurance — What Lexington Policies Actually Cover

Most Massachusetts homeowner policies cover emergency tree removal when the tree damaged a covered structure. The standard breakdown:

What the tree hit	Coverage	Typical Cap
Your house	Dwelling coverage	$500 – $1,000 per tree for removal; full structural repair separately
Your detached garage, shed, or fence	Other structures coverage	$500 – $1,000 per tree, varies by policy
Your car	Comprehensive auto	Subject to deductible
Your neighbor's property	Their insurance, usually	Liability claim only if you knew the tree was dead
Nothing — just the yard	Usually not covered	$0 — this is the most common gap

We provide itemised invoices with before-and-after photos that make claims clean. We have worked with most of the regional insurance carriers and we know what they want to see. If your adjuster needs anything specific, we will provide it.

The Bylaw Still Applies — But Without the Mitigation Fee

Lexington's Tree Bylaw covers hazardous tree removal, but with an important carve-out: hazardous trees are exempt from the $200-per-inch mitigation fee. We still file the permit so the removal is documented, but the homeowner does not owe the fee that would normally apply during construction. We handle the paperwork on every emergency job — usually within a week of the work, sometimes same-day.

That means an 18-inch oak that came down on your roof during a storm costs you the tree work and the $360 permit-only filing fee — but not the $3,600 mitigation hit it would have triggered during a teardown. Same tree, very different number, because hazard exempts mitigation. (Physics did the removing. The town does not charge you for physics.) Full breakdown in our Lexington Tree Bylaw guide.

Lexington Storm-Damage Patterns

After thirty years of running storm calls into Lexington, the patterns we see most:

• White pines on Follen Hill and Meriam Hill. Tall, top-heavy, shallow-rooted in the sandy soil. They are the first to come down in a 50 mph gust.
• Dead ash, everywhere. Emerald ash borer has been moving through Lexington since 2018. Dead ash becomes brittle within 12 to 18 months and snaps at the trunk in moderate wind. If you have a dead ash within falling distance of your house, do not wait for the next storm.
• Heritage oaks near Battle Green. These survived hurricanes and ice storms going back to the 1800s, but the older ones develop heart rot you can't see from the ground. Periodic ISA assessment catches it before failure.
• Microbursts in summer. Late-August thunderstorm cells can drop 70 mph straight-line winds for two minutes and take down healthy trees that survived every nor'easter for a century. The microburst does in 90 seconds what the hurricane forecast spent three days warning you about. Trees do not read the forecast.

When You Should Not Call for Emergency Service

I am going to talk us out of a call here. If the tree is on the ground, hit nothing, and is sitting in the yard waiting for cleanup, you do not need emergency service. Schedule it for a regular visit within a week. You will save $300 to $800 on the same job.

If a small limb came down in the driveway and you can drag it to the curb yourself, do that. Save the crew for the homeowner whose oak is actually on a roof three streets over.

Preventive Work That Pays for Itself

The cheapest emergency call is the one you never had to make. The work that prevents most Lexington tree emergencies:

• Dead ash removal before failure. A controlled removal of a 16-inch dead ash is $600 to $1,000. The same ash falling on your garage is $2,500 plus structural repair plus the deductible.
• Crown reduction on overgrown maples. A 65-foot maple leaning over the roofline pruned back from $800 to $1,200 outlasts the next three storms. Same tree falling on the roof in year four is $3,500 minimum.
• Deadwood removal on heritage oaks. Every two to three years. Catches the loose branches before they drop on a child or a car.
• Hazard assessment after a major storm. If your trees survived this one, ten minutes with an ISA arborist tells you which ones might not survive the next.

Why You Want a Local Crew, Not Storm Chasers

After every major Massachusetts storm, out-of-state crews show up looking for work. They are called storm chasers. Door-knockers, really. If a guy with a magnetic sign on a truck with a Pennsylvania plate rings your bell within 48 hours of a nor'easter, he is not your local arborist — your local arborist is too busy to door-knock because he is at the houses that called him. Their insurance frequently does not cover work in MA, their pricing is invented on the spot, and when something goes wrong they are 800 miles away. They will undercut a legitimate quote by $500 and then leave you with a torn-up lawn, no insurance documentation, and a tree pile in the driveway.

A local crew that has been answering Lexington phones since 1995 is a phone call away when something goes sideways. We have the certificate of insurance on file with the Town of Lexington. We know which streets flood after which storms. We have history with the Tree Warden. Hire local. (The salesperson who quoted you from the chain has never climbed a tree. The guy who quoted you from McDonald has been climbing them since the Clinton administration.)

Service Area for Emergency Response

We respond 24/7 across 18 towns. Closest to Lexington: Billerica (home base), Bedford, Burlington, Winchester, Waltham, Woburn, Concord. For non-emergency Lexington work, see our full Lexington tree service overview or the Lexington tree removal cost guide.

Call Now

Tree emergency in Lexington, MA: call (978) 375-2272. I answer the phone. We are mobilising while you are still telling me what happened. Hang up, take a breath, and put the kettle on — we will be the next set of headlights in your driveway.