Tree risk assessment form, every field explained.

Who, when, where, and which tree if there is more than one on the property.

A form without a date and a tree number is not evidence of anything. If it ends up in front of a lawyer, this header is the first thing checked.

Botanical name if you can. DBH at 4.5 feet in inches. Height and spread estimated or measured.

Part size and fall distance in the risk table come from these. DBH also drives the dose if a treatment follows.

Your name and ISA/TRA number. The period the rating applies to, usually one year. Binoculars, mallet, probe, resistance drill.

The time frame is the single most misunderstood box. A rating is only valid for the window you write here.

Each thing that could be hit: description, target zone, occupancy rate 1 to 4 (rare, occasional, frequent, constant), whether it is practical to move it or restrict access.

Risk is the tree and the target together. A hollow oak over an empty field is Low. The same oak over a patio table is not.

History of failures, topography, site changes (grade, clearing, hydrology, root cuts), soil conditions, prevailing wind, common weather.

Root cuts and grade changes explain a lot of failures that the crown never hinted at.

Vigor, foliage condition and percentages, pests, abiotic damage, and how this species typically fails (branches, trunk, roots).

Species profile is where local knowledge goes: Bradford pear at the union, silver maple at the codominant stems, pecan at included bark.

Wind exposure, relative crown size, crown density, interior branches, vines or mistletoe, and any recent or planned change in load.

A tree that just lost its windbreak neighbor is carrying load it has never seen. That belongs on the form.

Checklist: dead or broken branches with count and max diameter, over-extended limbs, pruning history, cracks, codominant stems, included bark, cavities, conks, decay. Then the main concern, load on the defect, and likelihood of failure for this part.

The likelihood call (improbable, possible, probable, imminent) is made three times, once per part of the tree. The form makes you commit to each one.

Same checklist pattern: bark, codominant stems, included bark, cracks, cankers, ooze, decay, conks, cavity depth and percent of circumference, taper, lean and whether it is corrected, response growth.

Percent of circumference and cavity depth are what let someone else check your work later.

Collar buried or visible, girdling roots, dead or decayed roots, conks, cracks, cut roots and distance from trunk, root plate lifting, soil weakness, response growth.

Most catastrophic whole-tree failures are root failures, and most of the evidence is at or below grade. Pull the mulch back.

One row per failure type: conditions of concern, part size, fall distance, target number, likelihood of failure, likelihood of impacting the target, the combined failure-and-impact from Matrix 1, consequences, and the risk rating from Matrix 2.

This is the whole method. Two lookups turn four judgments into a rating of Low, Moderate, High, or Extreme, and the same inputs give the same answer no matter who fills it in.

What you would do about each concern (prune, reduce, cable, remove, move the target) and what the risk rating becomes if that is done.

Residual risk is what the client is buying. "Reduce the east leader, risk drops from High to Moderate" is a sentence they can act on.

The highest rating on the table becomes the overall. Priority 1 to 4. When to look again.

The inspection interval is the box that gets you called back, and the one that protects you if the tree fails after the interval lapsed.

Whether this is the finished rating. Whether a Level 3 assessment (resistance drilling, aerial inspection, root excavation) is warranted. What you could not see.

"Root collar buried, not inspected" is the limit of a Level 2 assessment, written down, and nothing more.

Anything the checkboxes did not capture.

Write it the way you would say it to the client standing next to you.