Tree touching power lines in Florida, United States: who is responsible

This page reports what the official source says. It is not legal advice: ask the office named here. It describes the pages of two utilities and two statute sections. It does not cover Florida's municipal utilities, electric cooperatives or Duke Energy Florida, and no Public Service Commission page on trees was opened for this page. Other states have their own rules.

What Florida Power and Light says it does

The page Line Clearing Program says the company trims on a planned cycle and checks the entire length of a line once it is selected. It says it will not trim every tree, and that it is the customer's responsibility to have other trees trimmed by a qualified tree trimmer if they are within 10 feet of a power line. Its contractors use directional pruning, which the page describes as removing whole branches back to the main trunk where trees normally shed them. Trees that cannot be pruned without dramatically affecting their shape or health are removed, with the customer notified in advance and, as a courtesy, consent obtained. After a trim or removal, the page says debris is collected before the end of the next day, except during restoration after a storm. It also says free mulch from the work is filled in loads of at least one truckload, which it puts at 14 cubic yards.

Questions the company answers

Question	What the FPL pages say
Cycle	The FAQ page says that on average the main power lines (feeders) are cleared every three years and the neighbourhood lines (laterals) every six years, with most scheduled work finished before the height of storm season.
Notice	A letter arrives approximately two weeks before line clearing begins. If access to a property is needed, someone contacts the owner or leaves a note with contact information.
Cost	The company says it does not charge for the service. It asks that anyone from a line-clearing crew who requests payment be reported by calling 1-800-226-3545.
Standards	FPL says it and its contractors follow the directional pruning guidelines of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI A300), and that contractor workers follow Occupational Safety and Health Administration rules, including 1910.269 for line-clearance workers.
Shaping	Crews trim only around FPL lines and equipment. The page says additional shaping for looks is for a private contractor to do after the line-clearing crew has finished.
Distance	The safety page says only specially trained line-clearing professionals should work around power lines, and it asks that ladders, lifts, scaffolds and tools not come within 10 feet of neighborhood power lines or 30 feet of all other power lines.
Sparking tree	The FAQ page says a tree touching power lines and sparking is reported to FPL at 1-800-4OUTAGE (1-800-468-8243).

Storm debris

The FPL page Storm Debris Policy says that during hurricane or named-storm restoration the company clears only debris that affects its facilities, power lines or access to its equipment. When the policy is active, it says the property owner, together with the normal refuse provider, removes debris after landfall, that in most of FPL's area the refuse service is the city or county, and that it is the owner's responsibility to move debris to the curb. The page asks that debris not be piled near utility poles. It says standard FPL debris pickup may stay paused for an extended period in the hardest hit areas. It also answers who is responsible for a tree in an easement or right of way: FPL says it is responsible for maintaining its electrical equipment, including trimming near it, and that trees it does not trim, within 10 feet of a power line, are the customer's to have trimmed by a qualified professional.

What Tampa Electric says

The Tampa Electric page Trimming Trees says the company has certified arborists and degreed foresters oversee its tree trimming, and that it holds the Tree Line USA designation, which it puts at 17 consecutive years. It names the Florida Administrative Code, Chapter 366, Public Utilities, statute 366.04, National Electrical Safety Code Section 21, Part 2, Rule 218 and the ANSI A300 pruning standards as the rules it adheres to. It describes two kinds of pruning, lateral and directional, and says palms cannot be reduced in height or directionally pruned, so removal or relocation is the answer it gives for palms interfering with its facilities.

On service wires, the page says it is Tampa Electric's responsibility to repair them but each customer's responsibility to keep them clear of vegetation. Its contract crews look at service wires during routine work and may trim where there is mechanical strain on the wire, and it says further work by the customer may be needed. Tampa Electric says it will de-energize ("drop") the service wire on request so work can be finished safely. Its storm protection plan answer says the plan includes trimming up to 700 additional miles of trees each year.

What Florida law says

Section 366.04 of the Florida Statutes, in the 2025 edition, says in subsection (6) that the Public Service Commission has exclusive jurisdiction to prescribe and enforce safety standards for the transmission and distribution facilities of public electric utilities, cooperatives and municipal electric utilities, and that in adopting them it must at a minimum adopt the 1984 edition of the National Electrical Safety Code and, after review, any new edition. Section 366.96 defines vegetation management as the actions a public utility takes to prevent or curtail vegetation from interfering with its infrastructure, including mowing, herbicide, tree trimming and removal of trees or brush near transmission and distribution facilities. It makes vegetation management one of the three parts of a utility's storm protection plan, with overhead hardening and undergrounding. Its findings say a majority of power outages in extreme weather are caused by vegetation blown by the wind.

The Florida Administrative Code rule 25-6.0342, Electric Infrastructure Storm Hardening, appears on the Florida Administrative Rules site as repealed with effect from June 2, 2020. The repeal notice gives the reason as the rule being duplicative of another Commission rule, obsolete and unnecessary. The replacement rule was not opened for this page.

What the sources leave out

The pages read set no clearance distance for the tree owner other than the 10 feet and 30 feet that FPL gives, and no price for any owner. They do not say who pays when a tree on private land falls on a service line.

Who to call

Florida Power and Light, trees and power lines pages: a tree touching power lines and sparking: the FAQ gives 1-800-4OUTAGE (1-800-468-8243)
Tampa Electric, trimming trees page: tree limbs reaching its lines or a service wire to be de-energized, per the company