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Okay, I have a question, and I can't ask the plant biologist here at work because he is on leave...so bear with me - here goes?
Why haven't the hills above Deadwood reforested? I know that the dead trees are the town's namesake (they were supposedly that way as the result of a wildfire), but those hills have looked that way since I was a kid. If normal stages were occurring, there would have been more undergrowth initially, even during Deadwood's early heyday, and there would be timber standing on those ridges by now. Why won't the area reforest? I can't find anything online. Can someone point me there?
It takes about 25 years for ponderosa pine to regrow to any sort of height in the forest cycle. Provided the fires didn't burn so hot as to sterilize the soils. There should be grass regrowth. If there were lodgepole pines fire activates the seeds of that tree. But there are few stands of lodgepole pine in the hills.
A good book to read or look it, its mostly pictures is: Exploring with Custer By Ernest Grafe and Paul Horsted. It does an excellent job comparing the sites from the 1874 expedition and the same sites today.
I understand that, but what I don't get is why there is just grass and dead trees on the ridges still. We left 25 years ago, and it looks the same as it did back then. What is causing a halt to reforestation?
Several dry years. Its been dry to the better part of the decade. There was the Grizzly Gulch fire that started June 30th 2002. That might be part of what you are seeing too.
There were other major fires around deadwood in 1957 and I think 1966.
The Grizzly Gulch Fire is the main culprit. In 2002, it almost burned Deadwood down. Firefighters did a fantastic "last ditch stand" to save the town. The difference before and after the fire was drastic. I'm told that they really didn't think they would hold it off and had quite a law enforcement convoy to safely escort all the cash out of town and to banks.
Another reason for some of the deforestation is the epidemic of pine beetles that are killing many acres of trees.
Yea Grizzly Gulch Fire was enormous.....Some family friends own the Thunder Cove Inn and they had to douse the building in water to help save it, I think Deadwood was saved by a rainstorm or a wind change if I remember right and obviously the brave firefighters....It was always a dream of mine to be a forest firefighter but I have a couple bum knees and a bad ankle.....Lots of respect for them though!
Grizzy Gulch made for a 16 hour shift that started in Pierre and ended in Rapid. My first experience with military barracks. That week had a butt load of overtime.
Hopefully the forest service steps up the logging and thinning efforts to help the forest help. I was working expanded dispatch, my brother was on a structure protection crew... I miss being out the field.
So, up until 2002, the Hills around Deadwood all had trees growing on them again? Because what I see now matches what I remember from when I was a kid, and photos we have of that time. Just trying to make sense of it! Thanks for everyone's input and patience!
A lot of it had to do with strip mining too. Homestake didn't reforest the areas they dug up. (Though they promised they would...)
I believe the only strip mining Homestake did was at the Lead open cut. Its a huge hole in the ground. There are tailings piles and things like that, but that area in comparison the the fires is nil.
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