In British Columbia and Alberta the have been very aggressively harvesting this timber for 10 years. They also had devastating fires like this a few years back near Kelowna , BC. British Columbia has harvested most of this dead timber now. The remaining timber has little sawmill value and will most likely end of being chipped for pulp & paper. The BC and Alberta govts. forced the sawmills to take this dead timber to get any green timber too. They basically gave them the dead timber for free just to get it harvested.
In the US , environmental groups ALWAYS file injunctions to slow up timber sales on any state or federal lands. The idea being that this dead timber has a limited shelf life. The longer the sale can be delayed , the less value it has to the sawmills. One of the biggest problems in CO & NM is that there are only 1-2 major commercial sawmills left in this part of the country. Sierra Pacific had even proposed to build a sawmill in this area specifically to process this timber. However, it has been delayed because they were concerned the timber would be tied up in lawsuits.
We are now seeing the result of the delaying tactics of the environmental groups. They got exactly what they wanted. They would rather see it all burn , than be harvested. If your house gets burned too, tough sh*t. You should have not encroached on the wilderness.
The lumber broker.
Note that we are not hearing a peep from the enviros about all the tons of CO2, smoke, & ash entering the atmosphere from the fires. A 2x4 board, OTOH, retains its carbon for potentially hundreds of years. Duh! Enviros are as dumb as rotten wood.