There was a 40' oak with a base of 4.5-5 feet across the street, down one house. Two Saturdays ago I heard chainsaws, and then the usual branch shredder truck showed up. When he showed up, the saws stopped, and I noticed a pick up truck was parked sort of diagonally across the street. The chainsaws started back up, and I was lucky enough to be outside when someone yelled, the truck shot backwards, and the whole tree came down. They made it go down between other trees, a fence, and some cars parked in the neighbors driveway. The tree seemed as wide as it was tall, and once on the ground, they made short work of that thing. I love just in time physics, and that was one of the cooler things I've witnessed.
So they pulled it with a rope tied to the truck? Lot of tricks to tree work. Last house I lived in a huge section of a pine tree fell on the house and poked holes in the roof. I cut it up as much as I could with a bow saw and the landlord got a service to come out weeks later. There was a piece which they estimated @500 pounds still on the roof and they trussed it up with ropes and lowered it to the ground without any pulleys, just tied to the tree and hoisted it up and swung it over and down.
I also watched one of them scramble up a tree with a small chainsaw hanging from his belt on a rope. I could never climb like he did.