The young woman who was fatally struck by a falling tree in Adelaide's parklands on Wednesday afternoon is being remembered as a "beautiful soul" who deeply loved her family and friends.
The 22-year-old victim of the horrific incident is believed to have been sitting under the giant gum when a huge portion of its trunk snapped off at playing fields near War Memorial Drive in North Adelaide.
A first responder said the scene was a "confronting" one for emergency services, and estimated the tree weighed as much as 10 tonnes.
The city council is currently investigating, and police are preparing a report for the coroner.
A man, Josh, who on Thursday morning left a bouquet of flowers at the scene, paid an emotional tribute to his "dear close friend".
"She was a beautiful person — cute, loving, she was shy at times but she would always talk, she was very approachable," he said.
"She always had a smile on her face."
Josh said the pair had recently met at a gym, and that on Wednesday told him she was going for a run.
He started to get worried when he had no response to messages.
"I just checked the news and I saw that something had happened, there was an accident down here, and it said 'young woman, early 20s', and I just started thinking the worst," he said.
"She was a dear close friend, very close. We had just met each other about a month ago, and she was a very beautiful soul.
"She absolutely loved her family, with every bit of her soul, she loved her friends, her cats, she was taken away way too soon.
"She had so much love and life to give."
Emergency services were called to the site about 2:30pm on Wednesday, but "sadly the 22-year-old Adelaide woman died at the scene", police said.
Metropolitan Fire Service commander Declan Dwyer was among the first responders and said it was a challenging scene.
"Everyone was really keen to try and help, and try and do what they [could] to save this poor girl, but unfortunately to no avail," he told ABC Radio Adelaide.
"It was very confronting for emergency crews and also the first people who were there."
Mr Dwyer estimated the tree was between 20 and 25 metres in height, and "maybe a couple of metres around".
"Whilst we were doing our rescue calculations, we sort of estimated it to be around about 8 to 10 tonnes," he said.
"It was a large tree that had split, obviously when it was very young, and the trunk of it was divided into a quarter and three-quarters coming out of the ground.
"The three-quarter section – it appeared like it snapped off at the base and fell, away from the remaining section of tree."
The section left standing presented a threat to emergency crews, who were forced to stay clear because "the risk of the remaining section of the tree falling was quite great", Mr Dwyer said.
Arborists attended the scene on Wednesday to remove that part of the tree, Mr Dwyer said.
He said the tree had recently been inspected by the Adelaide City Council, which is now investigating.
'Awful, tragic accident', premier says
Adelaide Lord Mayor Jane Lomax-Smith said the incident appears to have been a "shocking accident".
"I express my sincere condolences to the family and friends of the young woman tragically killed," she said on Wednesday.
"Unfortunately, I can provide no further information at this time as the circumstances which led to this tragic event will be the subject of an official investigation."
Premier Peter Malinauskas described the fatal incident as a "awful, tragic accident".
"What I think needs to happen is a proper examination of the events," he said.
"This is an awful tragedy, and I think if there are things to learn out of tragedies we should address them but we should also acknowledge at times that awful tragedies occur
"The council do spend a lot of money — a lot of money — maintaining the parklands so they'll conduct their own analysis of what occurred here."
Local arborist Marcus Lodge said while it was common practice for authorities to undertake inspections, cracks in a tree were not always obvious.
"There is, allegedly, supposedly, a link between cool weather becoming hot or hot weather becoming cool, and that causing a variation in temperature across a branch that may lead it to [a] fail," he said.
"The difficulty is that after a storm event, the tree may have partially failed but not actually fallen, and it's in the next little period after that you may find you have an increased likelihood of small-to-medium-diameter branch failures.
"You minimise the risk by undertaking inspections.
"I think we have got the mix about right — most councils have their tree inventories assessed on a regular basis."