Emerald Ash Borer in Fort Wayne: What to Do About Dead Ash Trees

By the Fort Wayne Tree Pros team · May 8, 2026

Drive around almost any older Fort Wayne neighborhood — South Wayne, Lakeside, North Highlands — and you’ll still see the standing skeletons of dead ash trees. Some were killed five years ago and never came down. Many of them are now genuinely dangerous.

Emerald ash borer (EAB) reached northeast Indiana more than a decade ago, and Allen County was hit hard. If you have an ash tree on your property that hasn’t been treated, the odds are very high that it’s already dead or dying. Here’s what you need to know.

How to Identify an Ash Tree

Before EAB, ash was one of the most common shade trees planted in Fort Wayne developments. You can spot an ash by:

• Compound leaves with 5–11 leaflets arranged opposite each other on the stem
• Diamond-pattern bark on mature trees
• Opposite branching (branches grow directly across from each other, not staggered)
• D-shaped exit holes on the bark — the giveaway that EAB has been there

Signs Your Ash Is Already Dead

Once EAB infests a tree, death is fast — usually within two to four years if untreated. Look for:

• Crown dieback starting at the top, often with sucker growth around the trunk
• Bark splitting and falling off in sheets, revealing winding S-shaped galleries underneath
• Woodpecker damage — light-colored patches where birds have been digging for larvae
• No leaves at all by mid-May, when healthy ash trees are fully leafed out

Why Dead Ash Trees Are Especially Dangerous

Here’s the part most homeowners don’t hear until it’s too late: dead ash trees become structurally unsafe much faster than other dead hardwoods. Within a year or two of death, the wood becomes shockingly brittle. Limbs that look solid can shatter on impact, and entire trunks can fail without warning.

That changes the removal job in two ways:

1. Climbing them is dangerous. Reputable tree services won’t free-climb a long-dead ash. Many jobs require a bucket truck or crane instead, which adds cost.
2. Waiting makes it worse. Every season a dead ash stands, it gets more brittle and more expensive (and more risky) to remove safely.

If You Still Have a Living Ash — Should You Treat It?

Treatment with systemic insecticides (typically containing emamectin benzoate, injected by a certified applicator) can keep a healthy ash alive indefinitely, but it has to be done before the tree shows serious decline. Treatment usually needs to be repeated every 2–3 years.

It can be worth it for a prized, well-placed shade tree. It’s rarely worth it for trees that are already 30%+ dead in the crown.

What About the Stump?

EAB lives in the bark and outer wood of the trunk and large branches, so grinding the stump after removal is fine and doesn’t spread the beetle. You can replant a different species (oak, maple, ginkgo, or a disease-resistant elm) right in the same spot.

Don’t Wait on a Dead Ash

If you have a standing dead ash leaning toward your house, your neighbor’s roof, or a power line in Fort Wayne, please don’t put it off another season. We’ve been called to too many properties where a dead ash dropped a 40-foot leader onto a garage in a routine spring thunderstorm.

We can come out, assess the tree, and give you a free written quote. If it’s safe to wait, we’ll tell you. If it’s not, you’ll know.