noun General Slang

widowmaker

· noun · firefighter

A broken branch hung up in the canopy, waiting to drop on your head.

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Definitions

1

A loose limb, broken treetop, or dead branch hung up in the canopy that can fall without warning — usually onto whoever's working below. One of the top killers on wildland fires and a constant hazard during mop-up in burned timber, when fire-weakened trees start dropping pieces hours or days later. Lookouts are posted specifically to call them out; you don't sit, eat, or sleep under one.

“Don't bed down under that snag — there's a widowmaker hung up about forty feet up.”
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2

More broadly, any tool, machine, or situation with a reputation for killing the people who use it carelessly — a Harley-Davidson with a known engine flaw, a particular ski run, an unguarded saw. Wildland and logging usage came first.

“That old chainsaw with the busted chain brake is a straight-up widowmaker — pull it from the cache.”
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widowmaker In A Sentence

Don't bed down under that snag — there's a widowmaker hung up about forty feet up.
That old chainsaw with the busted chain brake is a straight-up widowmaker — pull it from the cache.

Origin & Usage

Logging and forestry slang dating to at least the late 19th century; carried into wildland firefighting vocabulary and codified in the NWCG glossary.

Variants widow-makerwidow makerhanger
Tags #firefighter#wildland#logging#safety

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