Tree service in Yakima, Washington

Tree removal permits in Yakima

Yakima has no removal permit for a tree on private land. YMC 8.77, the Public Tree Ordinance, governs street and park trees, and it touches private property in only two places: section 8.77.160 lets the city remove a hazardous or diseased private tree, and 8.77.150 requires clearance for branches overhanging public ways. Alongside it sits YMC 8.80 on trees and shrubs. There is no heritage tree program and no fee to look up, because there is nothing to apply for.

Public trees are a different matter. The Public Works Director, acting as the responsible official with the Parks and Recreation manager under 8.77.020, decides on removal of street and park trees on the Tree Board’s recommendation; call Public Works at 509-575-6005 before touching anything in the planting strip. Under 8.77.200 anyone who prunes, treats or removes a street or park tree must hold the required Washington state licenses and a Yakima business license, which is a useful screen for any company you hire. County rules and the Washington permit guide cover critical areas and the rest.

Every city compared: tree removal permits in Washington.

Source: Public Works Director (responsible official) with Parks & Recreation manager (8.77.020), YMC 8.77 (Public Tree Ordinance); YMC 8.80 (Trees and Shrubs). Checked 2026-10-02.

Storm records for Yakima County (covers Yakima)

Yakima County’s storm count is falling. NOAA logged 17 reports in 2023 through 2025 against 36 in 2020 through 2022, a drop of more than half, inside a record of 140 reports since 2016 that ranks 14 of 39 Washington counties. Fewer reports do not mean a quiet county; it means the big winters have been spaced out, not that the next one will be smaller.

Snow dominates the table at 80 of 140 reports, and the next line is unusual for a county whose top type is snow: 23 Wildfire reports, more than High Wind at 17. FEMA’s National Risk Index rates wildfire risk Relatively High and winter weather Relatively High for the county, with strong wind Relatively Moderate and ice Relatively Low. January, February and December are the peak months, and 68 percent of reports fall from November through February.

NWS forecast zones covering the county: Kittitas Valley; Lower Slopes of the Eastern Washington Cascades Crest; Simcoe Highlands; Upper Slopes of the Eastern Washington Cascades Crest; Yakima Valley.

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).

Power lines and utilities in Yakima

No utility is mapped for Yakima on this site yet, so there is no outage line or clearance rule to print here. For a line down or a tree on a wire, call 911 and then the number on your electric bill, and use the utilities index to see which providers have verified vegetation pages. The 10-foot rule applies regardless of who serves you: only a qualified line-clearance crew may work that close to an energized line.

Pacific Power agreed (Mar 2026) to sell its WA operations to PGE; pending regulatory approval, no customer action needed

Source: utility vegetation-management pages linked above; WAC 296-24-960 (WA L&I). Checked 2026-10-02.

Rain, snow and the growing season in Yakima

Yakima is dry. NOAA’s normals at the Yakima Air Terminal station show 8.01 inches of precipitation a year, with 20.3 inches of snow, December the wettest month at 1.44 inches and July the driest at 0.20. That is rain-shadow country, and it changes tree care: irrigation, not drainage, is the question for a replacement tree, and drought stress is a common reason a mature tree declines before a storm finishes it.

The city sits in USDA hardiness zone 7a, cold enough that species choices lean on winter hardiness as much as summer heat. Annual snow of 20.3 inches is the load the storm record keeps reporting, so prune for structure rather than letting long horizontal limbs build up.

Yakima Air Terminal, Wa Us: 8.0 in of precipitation a year, wettest in December, 20.3 in of snow. USDA hardiness zone 7a.

Source: NOAA NCEI U.S. Climate Normals 1991 to 2020 · USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023 (OSU PRISM ZIP data). Checked 2026-10-02.

Labor index for Yakima

BLS publishes no metro wage estimate for Yakima, so the labor index here is the Washington statewide figure: a mean of $32.20 an hour for tree trimmers and pruners, a median of $30.70, and 700 people in the occupation across the state. Treat it as a statewide reference rather than a local fact. It is a wage, not a price, and the modeled ranges on the service pages start from crew-hours that bundle labor with equipment and disposal, as the methodology sets out.

Washington statewide: $32.20 per hour mean wage for tree trimmers and pruners (BLS, May 2025); no metro estimate is published, so the statewide figure is shown. This is a labor index, not a price; the modeled crew-hour cost used on this site is $210 (method).

77 landscaping-services establishments were counted in Yakima County in 2023 (Census County Business Patterns, NAICS 561730).

Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, SOC 37-3013 · U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023, NAICS 561730. Checked 2026-10-02.

ZIP codes and nearby cities

Five ZIP codes carry most of Yakima’s land: 98902, 98908, 98901, 98903 and 98942. The Census Bureau’s 2025 estimate puts the city at 97,458 people, up from 96,968 in 2020. The only neighboring city with its own page is Ellensburg, 28 miles away, so the companies serving Yakima are local to the valley rather than spread across a metro, and a crew will usually be coming from inside the city or from nearby towns without pages here.

ZIP codes with the most land inside Yakima: 9890298908989019890398942

• Ellensburg28 miles

County page: Yakima County.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 ZCTA to place and county relationship files. Checked 2026-10-02.

Tree services in Yakima

Yakima’s service pages cover removal, trimming, stump grinding and emergency work. With no private-tree permit, removal is a judgment call between you and an arborist, and the cost guide covers the modeled range; trimming matters most for snow load and for the 8.77.150 overhang rule; stump grinding is simplest in the dry season; and the emergency page covers both snow collapse and the fire-season clearance work the county’s 23 wildfire reports point to. The arborist page covers assessment and tree health.

• Tree removal (statewide guide)
• Tree trimming (statewide guide)
• Stump grinding (statewide guide)
• Emergency tree service (statewide guide)
• Arborists and tree health
• Check a license in Washington

What to do next

Decide whether the tree is on your land or in the planting strip, because that is the whole permit question in Yakima. Private tree: no city permit, so start with a risk assessment if it is leaning, cracked or dying. Public tree: call Public Works at 509-575-6005 and let the Director’s process run.

Before hiring, check the company through the Washington license lookup, and if the job touches a street tree, ask for the Yakima business license that 8.77.200 requires. If you are clearing for fire safety, the defensible space guide explains what to cut and how far; the Yakima County page has the wildfire rating behind that advice, and burning falls under the Washington Department of Ecology.