Yesterday at about 11:45 a.m., heavy winds caused a tree along the Burke-Gilman Trail to break in half, nearly striking a cyclist and pedestrians.

“I heard a loud blast like [as] if somebody was shooting,” wrote Gianluca Interlandi, a postdoctoral fellow in bioengineering, in an e-mail.

Interlandi was on his way to work when he heard the tree fall.

“I look around and see 4 to 5 meters in front of me a tree which starts moving, and two seconds later it crashes onto the trail,” he wrote. “I was very lucky not to be a bit further on the trail at that moment.”

Interlandi said he was so scared he immediately left the trail, before returning 10 minutes later to survey the damage. Construction workers had arrived at the scene to clear the debris.

“I saw a worker with an orange jacket,” he wrote. “He was radioing: ‘There is a fallen tree on the trail. It’s blocking the bikers.’”

[Reach reporter Arla Shephard at news@thedaily.washington.edu.]