More firefighters are recognizing that fire behavior in beetle-killed forests is not necessarily more extreme than you would see in green stands of trees. The Church’s Park fire near Fraser, Colorado is burning in areas that have been affected by the mountain pine beetle. The fire has burned 530 acres and is 30% contained. Here is an excerpt from Denver’s channel 7:
The fire is burning in an area filled with green pines and dead, gray-colored trees that have been killed by pine beetles.
“Because of the beetle kill, there’s a whole lot of dead trees,” said Austin Deganhart, one of the first people to report the fire Sunday afternoon. “All of the lodgepole pines stand anywhere from 20 to 40, 50 feet tall and they’re totally dry and dead. That’s what makes up the majority of our forest up here.”
Fire officials said the dead trees post a great danger because they may fall on firefighters.
“There is a significant amount of pine beetle killed trees in the fire area. The greatest danger from the trees is not in terms of fire behavior, but hazards and risks that are posed to our firefighters on the ground,” said Geoff Bell, the fire’s incident commander.
Geoff Bell is the Forest Fire Management Officer for the Arapaho-Roosevelt National Forest, working out of Fort Collins, Colorado. He is a former Superintendent of the Tatanka Hot Shots (still photos and video of the crew) on the Black Hills National Forest in South Dakota.
An earlier article, which has been removed, even quoted the local Sheriff as saying the beetle-affected trees did not increase fire behavior. Oddly, in Colorado the County Sheriff is responsible for fire protection on unincorporated private land, so it’s good in this case that the Sheriff has some knowledge of wildland fire. I wonder if in some states the local fire chief is responsible for law enforcement?
Seven Senators ask for $49 million to fight beetles
Meanwhile, seven U. S. Senators signed a letter that was sent to the Secretary of Agriculture asking for an additional $49 million in just one U.S. Forest Service region, their Rocky Mountain Region, to fight the beetles. Part of their justification was that the forests, because of the beetles, are “at risk of catastrophic fire”. Last year $40 million was appropriated in the region for beetle mitigation. *sigh* Your tax dollars at work.