Collapse of loaded fractal trees

Mandelbrot1 has argued that a wide range of natural objects and phenomena are fractals; examples of fractal trees include actual trees, plants such as a cauliflower, river systems and the cardiovascular system. Here we apply the renormalization group approach2 to the collapse of fractal trees, which may be applicable to a variety of problems including cardiac arrest, failure of bronchial systems, failure of electrical distribution systems and the instability resulting in earthquakes.