Exploding tree

A tree may explode when stresses in its trunk increase due to extreme cold, heat, or lightning, causing it to split suddenly.

The trees are often scorched and burnt up, as with the most excessive heat, in consequence of the separation of water from the air, which is therefore very drying.

In the great frost in 1683, the trunks of oak, ash, walnut, and other trees, were miserably split and cleft, so that they might be seen through, and the cracks often attended with dreadful noises like the explosion of fire-arms.

[4] Linda Runyon, author of books on wilderness living, recounts her experience of the effect of cold on maple trees as follows: I was relaxing in front of a fire in the crispness of early morning when Crack!

That's a true wilderness thermometer!Wally and Shirley Loudon reported the effect of the freeze of December 1968 upon their orchard in Carlton, Washington as follows:[3] We saw 47 below on our porch, and we didn't look again.

[32] Exploding trees were the subject of a 2005 April Fools' Day hoax in the United States, covered by National Public Radio, stating that maple trees in New England had been exploding due to a failure to collect their sap, causing pressure to build from the inside.