I was wandering around to a part of Magnolia Plantation today that I don’t normally visit; the area by the Carriage House. Lots of private events are held here. In the past I had admired a large Live Oak tree near there. Today I walked up close to it and discovered something amazing.
I was puzzled to see that an area of the trunk had been filled in with cement block! Was this some kind of attempt to stop disease?
A plaque in front of it solved the mystery.
So, not only was the tree trunk partially hollow, apparently to some kind of disease in the past, but fires had been built inside of the hollow area? And it is still alive? Wow. That is one tough tree.
We have a large one of these in our back yard. Some of the limbs hang directly over the roof of our house. I used to worry about it coming down during a windstorm. I don’t think I’ll be worrying much anymore.
Two more images from that area. It’s a nice view of the Ashley river from up there.
Larry Maras Photography 
Bricks were an old method of shoring up the damaged Live Oaks. Middleton Plantation has a number that had been repaired that way. I guess it works 😀
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