I only recently learned that beetle killed trees were starting to be used in furniture making and, reportedly, make for some very nice looking and well made pieces. In this article, I learned that there are at least some builders that will use standing dead trees in building log cabins. Given that, it just seems like a damn shame that elected leaders and forest managers have been so short sighted as to let all these fires consume the fuel and cause all this devastation, rather than put it to better uses.

[note: pics and hyperlinks at linked article]

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Colorado wildfires: Poor forest management and more homes leading to catastrophic dilemma

Forest service: Our forests are not in good shape

By: Russell HaythornPosted at 9:23 PM, Dec 01, 2020 and last updated 6:52 AM, Dec 02, 2020

GRAND COUNTY, Colo. — Their stories are as harrowing as they are heartbreaking.

“I grabbed the dog and ran as fast as I could,” said Amanda O’Mara, who lost her home in the East Troublesome Fire in October.

The East Troublesome Fire burned 193,812 acres in Grand and Larimer counties after it started on Oct. 14 northeast of Kremmling. As of Monday, it is 100% contained.

“It’s been home for 46 years,” said Diane Williamson, who also lost her home. “The kids were born and raised here.”

Forces of nature are the subject of some of Hollywood’s biggest blockbusters. Unfortunately, those fictional tales are all too real this year in Colorado.

“We had the three biggest fires in Colorado’s history this summer,” said Mike Lester, director of the Colorado State Forest Service. “Our forests are not in particularly good shape.”

The East Troublesome Fire is the second-largest fire in Colorado history. This year's other major fires include the Cameron Peak Fire, which burned 208,913 acres, and Pine Gulch Fire, which burned 139,007 acres.

Lester says a lack of forest management in Colorado is leading to extremes.

“It’s not a surprise that it happened; it’s just a surprise when it happened,” Lester said.

All three of those fires, the East Troublesome Fire in Grand and Larimer counties, the Cameron Peak Fire in Larimer County and the Pine Gulch Fire in Mesa and Garfield counties, happened in late summer and early fall, outside Colorado’s normal fire season.

So, why the extremes? Lester says it’s complicated, but attributes massive wildfires to three primary issues.

First, droughts are more prevalent leading to a longer wildfire season and more insect infestations and dead timber.

“All of our key insects, like mountain pine beetle, for example, they’re kept in check by really cold temperatures early in the season,” Lester said. “We haven’t seen much of that in the last 20 years or so.”

Second, there’s greater suppression of fires because more and more homes are popping up in the Wildland Urban Interface.

“Once you start suppressing fire, you start changing fuel loads,” Lester said. “Half of Colorado’s population, roughly three million people, live in the Wildland Urban Interface right now.”

And third, there's a lack of forest products industry in Colorado, like loggers and furniture makers, who could clear out much of the fuel load.

“Mechanical thinning, logging, that type of thing,” Lester said.

In 25 years, Dan Ruffin, a home builder in the Colorado Rockies, built more than 35 log cabins.

“When I was building log houses, all my logs that I got were standing dead timber,” Ruffin said.

He’s witnessed, firsthand, the impact of not clearing out dead timber. And this year, he nearly became a victim.

“This is how close the fire came to our place,” Ruffin said as he pointed out a patch of charred grass up against the garage. “It came right to the cement foundation. Why it didn’t catch the house or the garage on fire, I don’t know.”

Ruffin says there’s no doubt the lack of a timber industry is leading to overgrowth and devastation.

“I know there were a lot of timber sales that were halted by the environmentalists,” Ruffin said. “They went out and put spikes in the trees and stuff. And then, when the beetle came through, it killed all those trees that they were trying to save.”

From an environmental perspective, many groups have now relaxed their opposition to forest-thinning projects.

Denver7 reached out to several of those organizations for this story and did not hear back.

But a Sacramento Bee investigation revealed that while environmental groups once routinely used the courts to block or delay forest-thinning projects, many have now started working with the logging industry.

The president of the California forestry association recently wrote, “The vast majority of the mainstream environmental community is on board. We’ve been working hard together … and have good partnerships.”

Many environmental groups now concede it’s not just climate change causing catastrophic wildfires, but poor forest management in states like Oregon, California and Colorado.

“I don’t know if this could have been prevented because there are fires every year in Colorado, but this is decades of not being touched and managed,” said Colorado native Amy Fischer.

Fischer said she believes the state must fund and support businesses that reclaim, recover and repurpose beetle kill and other dead timber.

“Why don’t they let builders come in and clear out the old and repurpose it and use it to build new homes?” said Fischer, who lives in Park County.

She just toured several homes where beetle kill timber was used in construction.

“It’s gorgeous when it is used,” Fischer said. “The stairs are made out of it, the trim around the doors. It’s gorgeous.”

Her fear is what will happen if the state does not act.

“It’s going to keep happening,” she said. “There’s places that haven’t burned yet, and it’s just a matter of time.”

State foresters say those beetle kill trees are not more flammable, but because of the volume, they are dangerous.

“It’s a lot of dead fuel. It’s a lot of dry fuel,” Lester said. “Once it ignites, it’s much harder to predict its behavior. It’s much harder to predict where it’s going to go.”

That was the trouble with the East Troublesome Fire.

When it exploded overnight on Oct. 21 to Oct. 22 from 20,000 acres to 110,000 acres, no one, not even those with the most knowledge of wildfires, knew where it would go or what kind of destruction it was capable of.

“Instead of a low to moderate intensity fire, they get to be catastrophic fires,” Lester said.

Thanks. I’ve got a comment or two. First, there are different fire regimes (obviously) depending on the veg type. The wildfires in Colorado that the state forester commented on, with thousands of acres of standing dead timber are in Lodgepole pine (LPP). LPP is a climax species with a “stand replacement” fire regime. Ponderosa pine (in a largely non-existent natural fire regime) is a high frequency, low intensity veg type. It evolved with an average fire frequency of roughly 12 years. Mature “yellow barks” are almost immune to the low intensity burns in this natural setting. Its bark is think and insulating. The fire burns around on the ground, takes out seedlings and young trees, and raises the crowns of mature trees. Ponderosa, in its natural state, is an open, park-like forest with clumps of trees and much open space. If you want to see the Forest Service’s attempt to restore an ecosystem, check out the Kaibab and Coconino in N Arizona.

LPP is a low frequency, high intensity veg type. It’s fire regime, again in an almost non-existent natural setting, is in the range of 200-300 years. Following a fire, quaking aspen will typically sprout, then subalpine fire. LPP follows in the climax state. When it DOES burn, it’s a “stand replacement” fire. The ecosystem resets back to pioneer state and fireweed is one of the first plants to sprout. You probably know that LPP is “cone serotinous,” meaning it takes the heat of a fire to melt the resin that keeps the cone closed, starting the cycle all over again.

Two things come into play. First, because of the high value of the National Forest for homes and recreation around places like Grand Lake, Vail, Aspen, Breckenridge, etc., fires occurring there are full suppression. God says, “OK, I have other ways,” and Mountain pine beetle moves in and begins the process of stand replacement that way.

Fire suppression is eating the FS budget. It’s now over half and rapidly climbing. Projects that address forest health issues are back burnered again and again—-except in communities like Vail. “Money doesn’t talk, it screams,” Bob Dylan.

The monster fires are now funded like hurricane relief, not straight out of the FS’s budget. Congress needs to completely separate forest management from fire suppression, in my humble opinion. Glad to read that the enviros are finally climbing on board.

I’ll add that the legacy of decades of radical environmentalism and their equally radical judges, swinging the hammer of Northern and Mexican spotted owls (and any other convenient species), is that there are almost no sawmills left out here. Even if the enviros are suddenly on board with managing our NFs, there’s little market for the timber because there’s no economically viable place to haul the timber to.

Also, harvesting only the dead trees in mountainous terrain is expensive and dangerous. I watched sky crane helicopters lifting dead Jeffery pines out of the small mountains that border Lake Tahoe. Got to be difficult. 160 years ago they clear-cut all of the surrounding mountains for supports at Virginia City silver mines.

The same truth could be (and has been) written, mere replace CO with CA.

Only one problem as I see it. Governments are rather stupid.

TMats brought up my backyard. Two sides of my property border Kaibab National Forest. August 2019, I watched lighting strike a quarter mile from my house. The next morning, smoke. The snag where the lightning hit was on fire. I made a call to the KNF fire dispatch and gave them approximate GPS coordinates. When their fire guy showed, I asked him why he came in the back way. Dispatch didn’t give him the coordinates I gave and told him the wrong mountain name...... They ended up turning that .1 acre fire into a 4800 acre prescribed burn. The area looks fantastic now.

The Kaibab National Forest archeologist told me that they have photos of Bill Williams Mountain from around a hundred years ago and the mountain had almost no trees. As of a couple years back, most of the mountain was a dog hair thicket of undersized Ponderosa. From 100 years of mismanagement. Just a waiting tinderbox. Now, they’ve almost completed a timber sale project on most of the mountain.(loggers on foot and pulled out with a Bell UH-1, largely) The KNF was finally able to convince the City of Williams that if a wildfire didn’t take out the town, the ensuing flooding would.

I talked with a firefighter engine crew, on a fairly recent fire, they were in the process of cutting danger trees from the forest along private property, a woman ran out and started yelling at them that they couldn’t cut down her favorite tree. They advised her that they would go ahead and leave it standing AND that her house would probably burn down along with that tree. She quickly agreed that the tree should go. The fire burned right up to her fence line and stopped.

It was nice to see the fire restrictions were able to give the FF crews around me an easy summer. Despite the gloomy days that Ca. fires made here.

If your in the Flagstaff area and not already familiar with what the restoration projects looks like, take Forest Road 74 north from Old Route 66, just west of Parks. Don’t need to go further than a mile to see the difference from the way it was to the way TMats described.

I’m pro-logging and pro-fire, if you hadn’t noticed. Anyone living in the woods should be. People are slowly becoming reasonable about forest management.