"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
“In one of those unintended consequences, they got the bark beetle to take care of the deadwood in the forests for them.”
It actually kills the live tree because it kills the cambium layer(the live part between the wood and the bark) that conducts water and nutrients betweeen the leaves and the roots of the tree. It is not an insect that bores into the tree after the bark is burned off by a forest fire.
So what you end up with are forests of dead standing timber which is much more suseptable to lightning strikes and therefore hugh forest fires.