I've seen two trees blow up like that, both while working. One was a huge ash tree that when it went, sent bark over 100 feet and the bark shards stuck in the ground like javelins. I decided that the open door of the workshop might not be a safe place to be, and as I passed a filing cabinet, lightning struck the building and I got a secondary strike that jumped the 18" from the filing cabinet to my shoulder and out my feet. Other than feeling like someone had belted me in the shoulder as hard as the could and the mild tingling in my hands and feet, I was fine.

The second was a huge white pine that got struck this past July 5th. The top is shredded like something you'd see in a Roadrunner cartoon, and there was bark everywhere. The two trees behind got hit in that same strike, and each is missing a strip of bark from crown to ground. We left the standing part alone, but it took two of us four hours to clean up the top half that came down.