Some feel the Mountain Pine Beetle is multiplying at an alarming rate due to the warmer climate. In Colorado thousands of acres are being destroyed by this beetle creating fuel for any future fires. Here is an excerpt from Rocky Mountain News:
The increased wildfire threat created by millions of beetle-killed Colorado pines could be the “Katrina of the West,” Sen. Ken Salazar warned … .
The number of Colorado lodgepole pines killed by bark beetles jumped nearly fivefold in 2006 as the explosive, decade-long bug epidemic continued to gain steam.
About 4.8 million lodgepoles were killed this year, up from about 1 million trees last year, U.S. Forest Service entomologists say.
The lodgepole acreage under attack by mountain pine beetles jumped about 50 percent this year to 644,840 acres, up from 430,526 acres last year.
Ground zero is north-central Colorado’s mountain forests.
Bark beetles are expected to kill nearly all the large lodgepoles there, and it will take a century for a mature forest to return, said research silviculturist Wayne Shepperd of the U.S. Forest Service. …
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