Millions of dead trees in the Colorado Mountains (Denver, Vail: credit, home)

[DOUBLE H]

Originally Posted by Shuffler

It's really simple.

Defensible Space = you get assistance from fire agencies when the big fire comes

No Defensible Space = fend for yourself, and good luck to ya!

Absolutely

[jazzlover]

What is a common fallacy of thinking among many Coloradans--especially the ones who have only lived in Colorado a few years (and that describes many Coloradans today)--is that they assume the forests of this state have always looked as they do now, and will continue to do so. Wrong.

What we are about to see with the lodgepole forests is a once-in-a-century or so environment-changing event. What was lodgepole forest in Colorado will be largely wiped out for the rest of our lifetimes. How and what will replace it will vary by location--suffice it to say, it is not going to look as it did for the rest of the lifetimes of anyone alive today--if ever, in some places.

This is not the first time this has happened in Colorado, even in the relatively recent history of Anglo presence in Colorado. In 1879, a huge complex of forest fires raked the southern part of Colorado--mostly in the higher altitude spruce-fir forests prevalent there at the time. Many areas affected by that fire remain open grassland "parks" yet today, or have been colonized by aspen groves. During the mining boom that also began in the late 1870's and early 1880's, many thousands more acres of spruce-fir forest were logged off around the mining camps to make mine timbers and lumber--most of that acreage was colonized by aspen trees, which is why that tree is so common around places like Telluride, Aspen, etc. Additional hundreds of thousands of acres of Ponderosa forests were also logged, particularly in the southern portion of Colorado. Some of that has grown back (and become overcrowded with trees because of fire suppression) and some of it never has come back.

So, the forests are dynamic places, not inclined to stay the same even under natural conditions. As is usually the case, when man screws around with natural processes, those processes are often accelerated or mutated, causing even more rapid and precipitous change. That is the case with modern Colorado forests. Sadly, too, human intervention is usually a one-way ecological process--once man sets major environmental forces into motion, he (or she) is usually pretty much powerless to stop them. This is also one of those cases.

[CosmicWizard]

Dying forests are NOT a problem limited to Colorado, the Rocky Mountains, or to the western USA & Canada. As far back as I can remember, I've been reading articles about the dying forests in the Great Smoky Mountains NP. Here is a recent article.

Before my time, the mighty American Chestnut of the eastern USA got wiped out.

Like jazzlover says, 'the forests are dynamic places, not inclined to stay the same even under natural conditions.'

[Shuffler]

We rode the train from Anchorage to Seward back in '00, and the Tongass was looking terrible, for the same reasons...or maybe it was the Chugach...can't recall.

[GraniteStater]

Originally Posted by CosmicWizard

Dying forests are NOT a problem limited to Colorado, the Rocky Mountains, or to the western USA & Canada. As far back as I can remember, I've been reading articles about the dying forests in the Great Smoky Mountains NP. Here is a recent article.

Before my time, the mighty American Chestnut of the eastern USA got wiped out.

Like jazzlover says, 'the forests are dynamic places, not inclined to stay the same even under natural conditions.'

Chestnut tree hybrids will soon be reintroduced into NH forests. The progress looks good with regards to that.

[wanneroo]

The pine beetle epidemic is an example of what happens when you don't let nature run it's course and let the left wing enviroterrorist agenda take over. Things always end up worse doing it the eco or green way.

Since we would not let forest fires burn, nature has taken over and let the pine beetle go crazy. Sad to see of course but the eco people had to have their way and now we have a time bomb on our hands.

I'm not worried for the long term future. The short term will be painful when the fires come, but long term not worried. New England was nearly clear cut for 200 years and the forests are beautiful now. Same where I live now in PA, everything was clear cut from 1830-1910 and now a deep lush forest has returned.

[GraniteStater]

Originally Posted by wanneroo

I'm not worried for the long term future. The short term will be painful when the fires come, but long term not worried. New England was nearly clear cut for 200 years and the forests are beautiful now. Same where I live now in PA, everything was clear cut from 1830-1910 and now a deep lush forest has returned.

NH has no licensing laws required for foresters/loggers and no laws against clearcutting. We have quite a few issues with clearcutting in the state. Also, trees take much longer to grow back when the stumps are left in the ground.

[POhdNcrzy]

Originally Posted by wanneroo

The pine beetle epidemic is an example of what happens when you don't let nature run it's course and let the left wing enviroterrorist agenda take over. Things always end up worse doing it the eco or green way.

Since we would not let forest fires burn, nature has taken over and let the pine beetle go crazy. Sad to see of course but the eco people had to have their way and now we have a time bomb on our hands.

I'm not worried for the long term future. The short term will be painful when the fires come, but long term not worried. New England was nearly clear cut for 200 years and the forests are beautiful now. Same where I live now in PA, everything was clear cut from 1830-1910 and now a deep lush forest has returned.

This post is just wrong all over the place!

First, fire suppression is controlled by the local municipal politicos who are beholden to the real estate/development business interests. You can't blame looney left enviro's on that one, sorry.

Second, I don't doubt fire suppression is part of the equation. However, the real reason the pine bark beetle epidemic is as bad as it is right now, is because the winters are no longer cold enough to kill off the majority of beetles. You sure as heck can't blame that on the Greens, either!!

Bottom line: Lay off the Greens and get a clue, dude!

[delta07]

Originally Posted by wanneroo

The pine beetle epidemic is an example of what happens when you don't let nature run it's course and let the left wing enviroterrorist agenda take over. Things always end up worse doing it the eco or green way.

Since we would not let forest fires burn, nature has taken over and let the pine beetle go crazy. Sad to see of course but the eco people had to have their way and now we have a time bomb on our hands.

I'm not worried for the long term future. The short term will be painful when the fires come, but long term not worried. New England was nearly clear cut for 200 years and the forests are beautiful now. Same where I live now in PA, everything was clear cut from 1830-1910 and now a deep lush forest has returned.

Funny how you are tying to blame this problem on the environmentalists, yet you don't have your facts right. First off, the reason federal agencies don't allow things to burn anymore, has more to do with those trophy homes built by the wealthy, than good forest policy. Environmentalists are very supportive of the let it burn policy!

In terms of New England, yes, it was nearly all cut away and the forests have returned. However, the forest type has changed drastically since it was cut over. Most of the trees cut out were coniferous stands, which have been replaced by hardwoods. Yes it's beautiful, but different.

As other posters have already said, a forest is a dynamic place. The pine beetle is just another great example of this. Nature will run its course, and the forest will change, but it will recover eventually. Just not in most of our lifetimes.

[jazzlover]

Originally Posted by POhdNcrzy

This post is just wrong all over the place!

First, fire suppression is controlled by the local municipal politicos who are beholden to the real estate/development business interests. You can't blame looney left enviro's on that one, sorry.

Second, I don't doubt fire suppression is part of the equation. However, the real reason the pine bark beetle epidemic is as bad as it is right now, is because the winters are no longer cold enough to kill off the majority of beetles. You sure as heck can't blame that on the Greens, either!!

Bottom line: Lay off the Greens and get a clue, dude!

I have to agree with this here, though I consider myself a staunch conservationist, rather than an environmental whacko--there is a difference. Fact is, we have had fire suppression in Colorado for nearly a century. For most of that time, it was practiced to protect timber so that it could be later harvested for lumber. Read the early Forest Service publications and they say exactly that. As the concept of conservation of resources and the idea of multiple-use on the forests gained traction, fire suppression was also seen as a tool to protect viewsheds, watersheds, etc. It wasn't until relatively recently that forest management people began to realize that total fire suppression was creating a tinderbox susceptible to disease (like pine beetles) and the likelihood of catastrophic mega-fires. By then, though, the gates had opened to all kinds of bull**** recreational development on the private lands adjacent to and nestled within the National Forests, making most controlled burns a political no-no. As I have noted earlier, those same development interests have now politically succeeded in perverting the Forest Service's fire management program from a tool to be used to manage the forest for the health of the forest to one of protecting private property that happens to be snuggled up against the forest. In fact, that protection of private property has, in most cases, run totally against proper management of the forest to slow the rate of forest susceptibility to major fire.

What I worry about most is not that a bunch of foolish homeowners stupid enough to build their homes in a tinderbox will get those homes deservedly destroyed in the mega-fires that are going to come, but rather that lives of wildland firefighters could be lost trying to save those pieces of crap. Not to mention the enormous cost to taxpayers for the Forest Service to try protect private property that should not be its responsibility to defend.