A forest tinged in red
.
Posted on 07/23/2007 8:57:22 AM PDT by george76
Gov. Bill Ritter said Wednesday that the pine beetle epidemic that has killed nearly half of the state’s lodgepole pine trees will have an “impact for generations to come” and will change the look of Colorado’s forests.
After getting a look at stands of dead trees from the air, Ritter said the outbreak is part of a natural cycle that has been encouraged by the drought, milder winters and the fact there are so many clusters of the same type and age of tree that are attractive to the beetles.
He said the epidemic can’t be stopped, only managed to reduce the risk of wildfires. That will change the look of Colorado’s forests as more pine trees die and are replaced with new ones.
About 44 percent of the state’s 1.5 million acres of lodgepole pine are now infested by beetles, or about 660,000 acres.
With all but 100,000 acres of the dead trees on federal land, the bulk of the thinning falls to the U.S. Forest Service, which plans to treat 18,000 acres of dead trees this year. Rocky Mountain Regional Forester Rick Cables said he wishes the agency could do more, but ...
The dry, dead trees, which have a rusty red color, pose the biggest fire risk in the year or two before their needles fall off.
(Excerpt) Read more at grandcountynews.com ...
A forest tinged in red
.
Natural progression....
Why haven’t we heard an EnviroNazi outcry about saving “Old-Growth Forests”???
We can allow beetles to destroy the trees, but never, ever, can we allow any loggers harvest them in any economically sustainable way.
sad.
reminds me of the 70s.
i’m native to the front range.
When I was in CO last summer, I saw some of this. The trees around Lake Dillon looked pretty bad. It’s sad that the beetle population has blossomed to the point of being out of control.
No, seriously: part of the reason they're so prevalent now is because of a lack of forestry management for many years. I keep telling people that trees are living things, explaining the life cycle, explaining the various diseases and pests that kill weakened and elderly trees already nearing the end of their life cycle, but year after year the environazi cry has been NO NO, DON'T TOUCH! Now the beetles have spread unchecked for years, adding to the already high risk of fire due to the buildup of normal deadfall at least tenfold. Same thing has been happening in Florida...though Governor Bush had badly infested areas logged off despite the environazi temper tantrums, in order to help contain the pests and (and this is a Republican) SAVE THE TREES. Which was exactly the opposite of what the environazis were doing.
I blame Yoko.
If this is part of a natural cycle then it probably provides a useful function.
The Forest Service was established to manage the forests using science.
Now, science is not used.
Damn the Sierra Club lawyers and the weak , emotional judges.
We have been watching this progress for decades.
The feds control over 80 percent of these forest. The eco-nuts and their lawyers have prevented even scientific logging.
Many more massive fires will happen in the years to come. Then massive air pollution, water pollution, organic soil destruction, dead wild life including fishes in streams without oxygen, and...
Ah, memories. I’m an old fart and can remember those days!
That's a nightmare I wouldn't have considered possible before last year when Obsessive compulsive "real conservatives" almost completely took over this forum.
Bush WILL be blamed though: he caused global warming (probably because he hasn't Built The Wall) and is therefore the dirrect cause of this pine beetle problem.
If I've learned anything from FR in the past 7 years, it's that no problems existed before Bush took office.
Your solution does work and we would have much healthier forests.
We can and should do this on our private land.
The forest service is a terrible neighbor. The foresters and other most USFS professionals know what to do and want to be good managers, but the eco-lawyers file tons of lawsuits and the weak judges are afraid.
....And it'll be blamed on Global Warming caused by the Bush/Cheney/Halliburton cabal.
Science has been the exception in the Forestry Department since the end of the '70's. The brainwashing has worked. Now perfectly rational people believe that trees will live forever if humans would only leave them alone.
My husband is a former Hotshot who fought in Yellowstone. He lost a lot of people that he knew there. I don't know how to undo so many years of propaganda. Even the Weather Channel was gratuitously selling Global Warming as the root cause of every single natural problem on Earth.
....And it'll be blamed on Global Warming caused by the Bush/Cheney/Halliburton cabal.
Science has been the exception in the Forestry Department since the end of the '70's. The brainwashing has worked. Now perfectly rational people believe that trees will live forever if humans would only leave them alone.
My husband is a former Hotshot who fought in Yellowstone. He lost a lot of people that he knew there. I don't know how to undo so many years of propaganda. Even the Weather Channel was gratuitously selling Global Warming as the root cause of every single natural problem on Earth.
Crap. Sorry. Double clicked the “post” button.
Ritter is a liberal politician who is pandering to his base.
Many people will now lose their homes in the next few years. Remember what happened in South Lake Tahoe recently ? Homeowners who ‘illegally’ cleared brush and dead wood away from their homes now still have a home.
Many homeowners who followed the governments instructions lost their homes.
It is sad to see the politicans and lawyers with no scientific training, degrees, nor life time of experience destroy the forests and all the living things inside the forests.
The propaganda is huge. These liberals make tons of money selling it.
Sorry that your husband lost people. Please thank him for his service as a former Hotshot.
Another trick ( there are many ) is to close historial roads under the title ‘ no new roads.’ These long time forest roads also provide fire support : heavy equipment, water, supplies, other fire fighters...can respond faster to fight the wild fire and to help save lives of those fire fighters who jumped in.
IF, but it's not. The natural wildfires that would keep the forest cleared of litter and crowding have been aggressively eliminated for generations.
The artificial substitute for natural clearing - logging - has been banned for decades.
These dying forests are the result of some very unnatural interference.
[Pine beetle infestation can be stopped right in its tracks with selective cutting of the timber. Pine beetles are hard to spread when the trees aren’t thick and are spaced out. I had an outbreak on my place and we stopped it by cutting a lot of the pines. The ones that are left have grown exponentially since that cutting and are healthier.]
Not totally true. What happens is that cutting out some of the dead and undergrowth gives more moisture to the healthy trees. The major cause of beetle spread is low tolerance due to low moisture levels which weakens trees. If you recall, a few years ago the Canadians were blaming the Nasty US industrial complex for ACID RAIN. I believe this is the same thing.
I don’t know the particulars of this Colorado situation.
But I can’t help but wondering if this isn’t a replay of the Southern
California situation.
I remember about five years ago when lots of old, dead, bug-infested trees
started going up in conflagrations east of Los Angeles and down near
San Diego.
IIRC, it was on either KKLA (99.5FM) or KRLA (870 AM) that a forestry
expert related how he’d served on a major study group and had said
“if we don’t start cutting down most of the dead/dying trees, we’re
going to have a major, disasterous fire”.
Of course, there was no action taken on his prediction...it was deep-sixed
by a “strange-bedfellows” coalition of environmentalist NUTBURGERS
and homeowners that feared that even sane clearing of dead trees might
drop the value of their homesteads.
When this forestry expert related his experience, he paused once and
gave one of the longest, most anguished “sigh”s I’ve ever heard on
talk radio.
But he was just too classy to say “I told ‘em so” given his prediction that
came to pass.
The pine beetles here in eastern NC live mostly in damaged trees. (Hurricanes = damage) They’ve always been here. No one paid any attention until the multi million dollar homes (read - tourist and yankee) on the beach started losing trees. Then it became an overnight epidemic! The envirowhackos pulled the only chemical that would really kill them. You should hear the money people complain. The locals just cut the trees down and burn them. :) No diseased trees = no place for the beetles to survive! No food-they starve to death. Natural cycles.
:’D Well said!!!
Best approach is to send psychologists up there to talk to the beetles, to convince them to come out of their shells.
There are two responses to start.
First is to build a defensible space around your home. This means clearing away the dead and burnable stuff. The roof and walls should have flame restiant materials. This will also help the fire fighters save one’s home.
Second is a healthy forest. We have not used science in decades thus we are in a big mess. Logging dead trees provide jobs for small rural communities as well as removes fuel for future fires.
LOL.
Best approach is to send psychologists up there to talk to the beetles, to convince them to come out of their shells.
Of course we could drastically reduce wildfires if we were allowed to clear cut dead sections of forrest, and stop this stupid policy of replanting 2 trees for everyone we cut down. Nature has already created a way to dispense seeds and create new growth.
Similar occurance in Northern NM.
I have no confidence in the Forest Service to have the slightest idea how to promote a healthy forest. They culled all the dead trees and did massive removal in a couple areas around here. The run off and erosion was terrible, and we don’t get much rain.
I’ve done quite a bit around my land to try and delay the beetles advance. Removal of weak and small trees to reduce competition. Use of removed tree trunks (4-6” diameter to produce “terraces” on sloped land to increase water retention and reduce runoff.
Of course it all depends on the amount of precipitation we get. It was good in the winter and early spring, but dry now. Hope the monsoons gear up.
You must not have been on FR much. It's a standard FR joke for someone to sarcastically cry "Bush's fault" once in each thread.
Ah, memories. I’m an old fart and can remember those days!
Sorry, but you don’t even know what an old fart smells like unless you can conger up memories of the Andrew Sisters. Oh, Yeah!
;’)
Some of the Colorado higher areas have been getting lots of rain recently.
The monsoons even have been causing mud slides in towns like Alpine, on Independence Pass, on I-70 and hwy 6...
I hope that you get your moisture soon.
Well, there you go! :-) Guess I'm just a medium fart - but old-fartdom is creeping up on me fast!
Arizona has been going through this as well.
Testimony for AZ Senate 4-6-2004, by Kathy Gibson Boatman
Thursday June 20, 2002 I called my Mom to try and warn her of the coming danger in the form of the Rodeo fire, joined by the newly reported Chediski fire.
You see, I knew exactly where Chediski peak was. I grew up nearby, and my Mom worked on fire watch for the Forest Service serving as a lookout, first on Dutch Joe, and for many years on Gentry lookout tower. We watched over the area that burned in the Rodeo Chediski inferno.
Saturday June 22, 2002, I watched my brother Larry Gibson operating a loader with the sky a fiery red backdrop behind him, as he pushed brush away from the fire.
This was the night the reporters and all non-essential personnel were sent out of town shortly after Michala Medina and the NBC news crew finished their story.
I talked to Larry the next morning, about 5:30am when I called his house to get reassurance from his answering machine.
I was shocked when he answered the phone; relieved to hear his voice, and amazed that he was still there. We discussed the conditions near Artists draw where he had worked most of the night.
He told me the fire had jumped their line 3 times, but they werenÂ’t giving up. He said it was bad, but he was going back. “I have to go help Frank,” he said. Frank Despain, a family friend was also working on the fire.
I asked Larry, “Why does your voice sound so raspy?” He replied,“It’s really smoky out there, and I didn’t drink much all night, we didn’t have any drinking water on the line.”
I found this amazing after watching the news reports and seeing the major production going on in Show Low just fifty miles away. I asked Larry about the Red Cross, and questioned him on the support they were receiving.
He is not a fire fighter by trade. Local residents came to help the authorities when they realized that resources were stretched to the limit and this fire-breathing dragon was more powerful than our firefighting assets.
Larry told me that the local men, boys and some girls were going around town putting out spot fires. Using borrowed equipment they were pushing brush and sometimes buildings to put out the fires.
While Larry was working to help save Heber, our childhood home southwest of town burned to the ground. This was a home that had been a part of Arizona history since 1916.
Previous owners rode horses for their primary transportation, as they settled the land.
They had cleared a defensible space around the home, and my parents had a new metal roof. My parents understood the danger surrounding them; they had done everything possible to prepare for fire season.
My family like others in the Southwest has watched our forest health decline over the past 30 years. We have watched the land change.
Historically, Arizona pine forests had 50 to 200 trees per acre. Under current practices, there are as many as 2000 trees per acre. As Harv Forsgren, the regional forrester for the Southwest put it; “Our forests are literally choking themselves to death.”
Wally Covington, the respected Northern Arizona University forestry expert has warned everyone on more than one occasion that, “The acceleration is such that if these trends continue we really have about 20 years left before every acre is affected and degraded by these disturbances.” He has stated,“We need to remove the excess trees and reintroduce periodic low-intensity surface fires”.
The bill sponsored by Marilyn Jarrett and Cheryl Chase is the only tool that brings real solutions to thousands of Arizonans surrounded by these unhealthy forests. We need private industry; we need to hear chainsaws working in our forests.
In Arizona alone, aerial surveys show 1,750,719 acres affected by beetle infestation in 2003. This acreage has increased from 53,795 acres affected in 2001.
The fires we are experiencing now are not normal and they will continue until the problem is addressed.
One half mile thinning and clearing near communities will not stop fires like the Rodeo Chediski.
It does not even begin to address the insect infestations occurring in our forests. Wildland Urban Interface projects are needed and they will help make communities more fire resistant.
This buffer zone will be important as we witness more super-inferno fires burning at 2000 degrees, moving faster than people can run and sometimes drive as evidenced by the recent fires in California.
I witnessed Sandy Bahr’s testimony yesterday, and I have read the same statements from other environmental representatives. They claim to support thinning the forests and making them healthier. Then they dig in their heels and say only focus on the corridor around communities.
This procedure is not really thinning the forests; it is a smokescreen to shift the focus away from the need to manage the forests.
In spite of the devastation we are experiencing and the facts that support the need to treat the land, some groups still adamantly oppose thinning and continue to blame our unhealthy conditions on those “awful timber companies, and the people who choose to live in forested communities.
Creating more restrictions on private property like House bill 2693 does, fails to address the real issue and erodes American freedom.
Statistics show that the Timber industry has been pressured out of existence, 13 mills have shut down in Arizona since the 80’s.
This is one factor contributing to the current problems we are experiencing. Failing to recognize and address the need for a sustainable timber industry is hazardous to everyone’s health.
Not just the people but the animals too.
I can still hear the sound of the baby elk separated from its mama during the fire. When we returned to the charred remains of our home after the fire, we saw the elk with burned hair and fear in their eyes.
We can’t sit idly by while our treasured forests and communities go up in smoke. We need action, and to quote Jim Paxon, “Hope is not a strategy.”
See the website www.azfire.org for additional information on forest health and fires.
Thank You
EnvironMENTALists
for Making the 2002 Fire Season
All It Could Be!
Yet these same judges are positively bold when it comes to abridging our rights.
Why is that, do you suppose?
the pine beetle epidemic that has killed nearly half of the state’s lodgepole pine trees ....Ritter said the outbreak is part of a natural cycle
About 44 percent of the state’s 1.5 million acres of lodgepole pine are now infested by beetles, or about 660,000 acres.
the bulk of the thinning falls to the U.S. Forest Service, which plans to treat 18,000 acres of dead trees this year. Rocky Mountain Regional Forester Rick Cables said he wishes the agency could do more, but....
___________________________________________________________
What a travesty! Half the trees in the state are dead, and the Feds can only deal with a small fraction of it.
Years ago at a logging conference, i asked Alton Chase why the enviros won’t admit that the balance of nature theory is garbage...this was after the Yellowstone fires..
He stated that the enviros are blinded by dogma, and have deluded themselves into the belief that catostrophic fire is somehow natural and good for the animals.
This theory ignores the fact that we have interrupted the natural fire regime for the last 100 years. Unfortunately this misguided policy will not end until we get a truly major catostrpohy along the lines of the great 1910 fire that burned three million acres in 36 hours....only this time, it will kill thousands, and not hundreds......
Crisis on our National Forests: Reducing the Threat of Catastrophic Wildfire
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1008628/posts
Good to see you back ranting and pushing back the frontiers of ignorance as Walter Williams is fond of saying.
Read another article on fires this eve...nobody wants to state the obvious: the USFS is no longer an effective fire fighting agency. Social engineering has chased all the experienced people out, and the liberals have filled these high level positions based on skin color and genatalia.
We got an elderly female psycologist as head of our local National Forest. It is only a matter of time before they appoint a disabled black lesbian vet with a masters degree in liberal studies to oversee the whole agency...pfffft!!!!
Will the Vail Valley look like this?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1498422/posts
Vail creating barrier against fire
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1887826/posts
“Ritter said the outbreak is part of a natural cycle”
I read an article awhile back and the guy was saying that when it was replanted all with lodgepole pine was bad - having a diverse forest would have limited the destruction to just the lodgepole I think - the beetles don’t touch the other types I guess.
The guy said something like - “well, fires or beetles, either way we’ll have a new forest here in the years to come.” And he mentioned something about replanting it with a more natural and diverse variety of trees. However, I imagine most of it will be left to nature’s own devices.
(Is it the lodgepole pine that the cones burst open during a fire to reseed the area?)
The enviros don’t want to save trees, they want to destroy the logging/building/trucking/sawmill businesses. It’s called anticapitalism.
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