It’s sad when a 87-foot-tall oak measuring almost 17 feet around bites the dust. But what do you call it when the tree meets its demise due to a flaming portable toilet? Two of them, actually.

City officials are remembering the freak 2010 accident today as they begin the process of cutting down and carting off the remains of the now-dead Swamp White Oak – a Maryland Champion in its day – in Herring Run Park in Northeast Baltimore.

“Feel free to spread the ‘lessons learned’ on how human activity can have the most devastating of effects on irreplaceable trees,” City Arborist Erik Dihle wrote in a message passed along via email yesterday by Gary Letteron, of the Forestry Division at the Department of Recreation and Parks.

The email was circulated to let people know about the imminent “removal of this notable tree,” with crews setting up around 7:30 a.m. Friday and log trucks expected to be on site to remove the biggest pieces on Monday. “Observers must stay well back from the work zone for safety reasons.”

Fear the Porta Potty

So how did this hefty specimen of Quercus bicolor come to suffer such an ignominious fate?

According to a post in the Friends of Herring Run Parks blog, it happened after a soccer game on a beautiful sunny day, August 1, 2010, in the grassy green spot where the tree stood – Father Hooper Field at Harford Road and Chesterfield Avenue:

Three porta-potties set in the shade of the old White Swamp Oak for the comfort of spectators and players. What could be more perfect? At game’s end, the spent hot coals from the grill were disposed of into one of the porta-potties. The hot coals combined with residual liquid to set the two adjacent potties ablaze. The Baltimore City fire department responded quickly and extinguished the fire. But alas, the damage had taken its toll on this magnificent champion. The fire climbed twenty-five feet up the trunk searing the bark to a blackened toast. Beneath it laid the melted blue plastic of the porta-potties, burned toilet tissue, springs and latches from the doors, and the remains of the charcoal that had caused this inferno.

If you want additional details, read the whole post. We’re too appalled to go on!