Emergency tree service in Gresham, Oregon

First hour: who to call

First hour. A wire down or anyone hurt: 911, then everyone away from the tree. Then the outage line, and here Gresham has a gap: Multnomah County’s electric utility is not mapped on this site yet, so there is no utility table on this page and the number to call is the one on your power bill; the utilities page lists the companies mapped so far. Nobody touches a tree near a line until the utility confirms it is dead.

Then the crew. The county’s record is 66 heavy snow, 34 winter storm and 9 ice storm reports since 2016, so the typical call is a crown or a leader snapped by load onto a roof or a car, not a whole tree uprooted. A trunk on a structure is rigged off in sections the same day; a limb in the yard with no wire under it waits for daylight and a normal quote, and saying which one you have is the first thing to tell the dispatcher.

Last in the hour, the ash question. Emerald ash borer is confirmed in the county with a quarantine, so a storm-broken ash is cut up and the wood stays inside the quarantine as chips of 1 in or less or as logs that do not leave; tell the crew the species so the debris plan is right before the saw starts.

Storm records for Multnomah County

Seventy-three percent of Multnomah County’s storm reports fall November through February, with December, February and January the peak months, so the emergency season here is four months long and the quiet season is eight. NOAA has logged 208 reports since 2016, rank 5 of 36 in Oregon: Heavy Snow 66, Winter Storm 34, Wildfire 34, Strong Wind 26, High Wind 20, Ice Storm 9, plus 3 tornadoes and 3 blizzards.

The recent three years logged 51 against 84 in the prior three, which lowers the odds of any given night, not the size of the bad one. FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the county Relatively High for ice storm and winter weather, and the county’s NWS zones run from Inner Portland Metro to the North Oregon Cascades and the Gorge I-84 corridor, so a report in the table is not always a Gresham report.

NWS forecast zones covering the county: East Portland Metro; Inner Portland Metro; North Oregon Cascades; Outer Southeast Portland Metro; Tualatin Valley; West Columbia River Gorge I-84 Corridor.

Source: NOAA NCEI Storm Events Database, 2016 to June 2026 · NWS zone-county correlation files (2019 to 2026 versions). Checked 2026-10-02. NOAA Storm Events 2016-2026; zone-based events assigned to every county the NWS zone covers using the zone-county correlation file in force on the event date (2019-04-02 file used for 2016-2018).

Insurance and documentation

Photograph the tree where it lies before a cut is made: the break point, what it landed on, the damage inside, and the weather on the ground, because the county’s peril is usually loading, with FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rating ice storm and winter weather Relatively High here. The February 13, 2025 freezing rain carried about $100,000 in reported property damage across the county, and a claim from a storm like that is easier when the file names the date.

Keep the invoice broken into lifting the tree off the structure, cutting and hauling, and the stump, since a policy does not treat them all the same way; if the tree was rooted next door, the Oregon guide linked below explains where the claim goes. Was the tree an ash? Keep the chip receipt too, because wood that leaves the quarantine area in the wrong form is a separate problem from the claim.

Full guide: storm-damaged trees and insurance in Oregon.

What emergency work costs

Emergency work is priced by crew-hour and the removal table below is the baseline; a storm call adds a call-out minimum and lands at the top of the tree’s height band because it is rigged off a structure rather than felled. In the county’s peak months of December, February and January, ask for the minimum before the crew rolls.

The Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro mean wage for tree trimmers and pruners is $35.04 an hour by BLS figures, with 1,160 employed in the metro; the wage is an index, not a price. That pool is spoken for in the December-to-February peak, when 73% of Multnomah County’s reports cluster, and a Gresham storm job in a quiet month is priced closer to a planned removal than the same job in a snow week.

Modeled estimate, not quotes (method): crew-hours × $225 per crew-hour; ×1.25 within 10 ft of a structure, ×1.3 with no truck access; a crane day adds $1,500–$3,500; stump grinding is separate.

Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, SOC 37-3013. Checked 2026-10-02.

What to do next

Tonight: 911 if a wire or an injury is involved, the outage line on your bill, photos, then a crew. This week: if the tree that failed had neighbors of the same age and size, book a risk assessment before the next front; a regulated tree of 8 in DBH that must come out afterward falls under the city’s 3-per-year exemption or a Type II permit, and the Planner on Duty (503-618-2780) sorts which. Check the company at the Oregon license lookup.

Back to tree service in Gresham · Emergency tree service across WA and OR · Emergency tree service in Oregon · cost guide.