Beetle attack will change our world (cutting a swath through the national forests of CO and WY)

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.wyomingnews.com/articles/2009/09/20/local_news_updates/20local_09-20-09.txt

Beetle attack will change our world

Global warming. Dwindling water. Massive wildfires. All are implications of the invasion.

By Shauna Stephenson
[e-mail]

…

"The general feeling is this will end when the food supply runs out," Frost says.

…

One: This is one of the biggest ecological changes we have ever seen. It's daunting and scary and -- for the experts -- exciting all at the same time.

A plague of beetles, including one that just now is taking its turn, is cutting a swath through the national forests in north-central Colorado and into Wyoming. At the low end, it's possible that just 10 percent of large lodgepole pines will be left.

…

But other and smaller trees suddenly are being chewed up as well. Where that leads remains to be seen.

…

[eleny]

1. Some campgrounds have been closed because of the danger

Dead trees are being removed and sites reopen. But it feels like a losing battle.

[DontTreadOnMe]

2. I just returned from a CO photo trip

and I was amazed at the beetle problem. Some areas have more than 50% of all pine trees dead. They turn a brown-orange color compared to the bright green live pines.
The beetles do not attack the Aspen trees. I see in the post they are starting to go after other trees though.

It will become a major erosion problem very soon.

[mitchtv]

3. one of the reasons for the big fires in Calif

dead trees from beetles

[joshcryer]

5. The living part of a tree is its outer ring below the bark, dead trees and live trees...

...burn about the same. Not saying this Beetle outbreak isn't pretty astonishing, just wanted to share that. Trees, living or dead, are excellent fire material.

[OKIsItJustMe]

7. “…dead trees and live trees burn about the same…”

(I take it you don’t try to burn them all that often.)

Dead, dried, “seasoned” wood burns much better than “green” living wood. Essentially all wood has water in it, but “green” wood has a good deal more.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/28/us/28wildfires.html

Beetles Add New Dynamic to Forest Fire Control Efforts

By KIRK JOHNSON
Published: June 27, 2009

DENVER — Summer fire seasons in the great forests of the West have always hinged on elements of chance: a heat wave in August, a random lightning strike, a passing storm front that whips a small fire into an inferno or dampens it with cooling rain.

But tiny bark beetles, munching and killing pine trees by the millions from Colorado to Canada, are now increasingly adding their own new dynamic. As the height of summer fire season approaches, more than seven million acres of forest in the United States have been declared all but dead, throwing a swath of land bigger than Massachusetts into a kind of fire-cycle purgatory that forestry officials admit they do not yet have a good handle on for fire prediction or assessment.

Dead trees, depending on how recently they died, may be much more flammable than living trees, or slightly more flammable, or even for a certain period less flammable. The only certainties are that dead forests are growing in size and scale — 22 million more acres are expected to die over the next 15 years — and that foresters, like the fire-tower lookouts of old, are keeping their eyes peeled and their fingers crossed.

“There’s just a lot more fuel in those dead forests available to burn,” said Bob Harrington, the Montana state forester, who is focusing additional resources this summer on a three-million-acre zone of beetle-infested forest from Butte to Helena.

…

[joshcryer]

8. The article doesn't really establish that, but this study establishes the converse:

http://welcome.warnercnr.colostate.edu/images/docs/cfri/cfri_insect.pdf

We actually had this discussion before: http://www.democraticunderground.org/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x201012#201184

Although it is widely believed that insect outbreaks set the stage for severe forest fires, the few scientific studies that support this idea report a very small effect, and other studies have found no relationship between insect outbreaks and subsequent fire activity. Theoretical considerations suggest that bark beetle outbreaks actually may reduce fire risk in ome lodgepole pine forests once the dead needles fall from the trees. It is true that severe fires have occurred recently in some forests following insect outbreaks (e.g., in spruce-fir forests of western Colorado). However, these fires burned under very dry weather conditions, and severe fires are the norm for these kinds of forests even without insect activity. Based on current knowledge, the assumed link between insect outbreaks and subsequent forest fire is not well supported, and may in fact be incorrect or sosmall an effect as to be inconsequential for many or most of the forests in Colorado (Figure 6).

More at first link.

[OKIsItJustMe]

9. Fire and Bark Beetle Interactions

http://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs_other/rmrs_2009_gibson_k001.pdf

Fire and Bark Beetle Interactions

Ken Gibson and José F. Negrón

Abstract

Bark beetle populations are at outbreak conditions in many parts of the western United States and causing extensive tree mortality. Bark beetles interact with other disturbance agents in forest ecosystems, one of the primary being fires. In order to implement appropriate post-fire management of fire-damaged ecosystems, we need a better understanding of relationships between bark beetles and wildfire. Interactions can be one of two primary types: Fires can influence bark beetle populations directly by providing significant amounts of susceptible trees which may precipitate serious outbreaks; and effects of bark beetle outbreaks may influence likelihood and behavior of future fires. We examine various aspects of these interactions.

Introduction

The collective wildfire seasons over past decade have been some of the most widespread and damaging in recorded history. As such, wildfires unquestionably have had both short- and long-term effects on management activities in forested stands of the intermountain West. Some of those effects may be initiation of bark beetle outbreaks. In other cases, existing outbreaks may be prolonged. Land managers need to determine, to the extent possible, which trees are likely to succumb to fire damage, which might survive fire effects but be killed by bark beetles, and which others may survive them both. The sooner those assessments can be made and preventive or corrective measures implemented, the more successfully adverse effects will be avoided (Missoula Field Office 2000). The relationship between bark beetle-caused mortality and resultant effects on fire behavior continue to generate questions. These relationships will also be discussed.

Other authors in these proceedings have discussed current bark beetle conditions, in western coniferous forests, where extreme tree mortality occasionally occurs due to elevated insect populations (see Cain and Hayes 2008). If we want to develop and implement appropriate post-fire management of fire-damaged forest ecosystems, we will need a better understanding of relationships between bark beetles and wildfire. This interaction can take two primary forms: Fires can have a significant impact on population dynamics of bark beetles which in turn can cause tree injury; and occurrence of bark beetles have many effects in coniferous forest ecosystems—one of which may be influencing the likelihood and behavior of future fires through changes in stand structure, transformation of live fuels into dead fuels, and fuel arrangements. In this paper, we examine two commonly held assumptions—fires have a significant impact on population dynamics of beetles; and that bark beetle-caused mortality, likewise, has a significant impact on wildfire behavior.

…

Table 1—Percent foliar moisture content in live and beetle-killed trees in 2005 at
different sampling dates, Fraser Experimental Forest, Fraser, CO
Sampling Date       Live Trees   Beetle-killed trees
mid-May 2006           104               64 
end-July 2006          127                9 
early-December 2006    114               14

…

[joshcryer]

10. Interesting article, had a good read, more about beetle outbreaks after fires, though.

[thunder rising]

4. Quick, we must cut them all down to save them...and throw in the old growth redwoods too.

[CAG]

6. Has anyone warned Paul and Ringo yet??

[Zoeisright]

11. I love the phrase 'God must have loved beetles because he made

so many of them.'

[stuball111]

12. A result of Global Warming...

They have been devastating BC in Canada for years, there needs to be an extended deep freeze to kill them off, and the weather has been too warm in the past decade to freeze them dead. True shit!:wow: