The beetle does damage to trees. The trees can die from excessive damage.
When trees die they fall to the forest floor and become SOIL. Before the trees become thick rich soil they become litter on the forest floor, however, as tree deteriorates TO BECOME litter on the forest floor new trees are growing.
In a HEALTHY forest by the time the dead tree becomes litter the 'tree canopy' remains intact. SO LONG AS there is NO DROUGHT. Tree rings, you know? Tree rings reveal activity in the trees cambium based on water availability.
When a healthy forest exists, even in the presence of beetle populations, and has a full canopy the forest floor is dark. There is little sunlight that makes it to the forest floor, it is interrupted by the TREE CANOPY. The forest floor is not only dark, it is wet. It is wet because the soil is moist.
DOES FIRE START IN WET SOIL?
Even unattended campfires or discarded cigarettes from a passing and irreverent Hummer can't start a fire in a healthy forest.
Then there is the topic of controlled burns. Some trees like the rare Long Leaf Pine REQUIRE controlled burns to propagate it's health. The Long Leaf Pine Ecosystem, of which there are very few in full health in the Southeast USA (the only place in the entire world where it exists) has an entire array of beauty and moist, wet forest flora if anyone bothered to look.
By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News
Tiny, winged bark beetles (click here) have been the ecological bad guys of the West for more than a decade, and rightfully so. They've killed off millions of acres' worth of trees in Colorado. Now all those dead trees are feeding the flames across tens of thousands of acres in the southern part of the state.
The West Fork Complex fire raging through southwest Colorado has already burned through more than 75,000 acres, including wide stretches of tinder-dry trees hit by beetle damage. With 600 people evacuated from homes, and nearly 900 firefighters on the scene, it is considered to be the worst fire to hit the Rio Grande National Forest....
...Are the beetles to blame for wilder wildfires? Not long ago, experts would have said yes. But more recent research suggests that the connection between Colorado's beetle infestation and the vulnerability to wildfires is more complex than that.
When trees die they fall to the forest floor and become SOIL. Before the trees become thick rich soil they become litter on the forest floor, however, as tree deteriorates TO BECOME litter on the forest floor new trees are growing.
In a HEALTHY forest by the time the dead tree becomes litter the 'tree canopy' remains intact. SO LONG AS there is NO DROUGHT. Tree rings, you know? Tree rings reveal activity in the trees cambium based on water availability.
When a healthy forest exists, even in the presence of beetle populations, and has a full canopy the forest floor is dark. There is little sunlight that makes it to the forest floor, it is interrupted by the TREE CANOPY. The forest floor is not only dark, it is wet. It is wet because the soil is moist.
DOES FIRE START IN WET SOIL?
Even unattended campfires or discarded cigarettes from a passing and irreverent Hummer can't start a fire in a healthy forest.
Then there is the topic of controlled burns. Some trees like the rare Long Leaf Pine REQUIRE controlled burns to propagate it's health. The Long Leaf Pine Ecosystem, of which there are very few in full health in the Southeast USA (the only place in the entire world where it exists) has an entire array of beauty and moist, wet forest flora if anyone bothered to look.
By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News
Tiny, winged bark beetles (click here) have been the ecological bad guys of the West for more than a decade, and rightfully so. They've killed off millions of acres' worth of trees in Colorado. Now all those dead trees are feeding the flames across tens of thousands of acres in the southern part of the state.
The West Fork Complex fire raging through southwest Colorado has already burned through more than 75,000 acres, including wide stretches of tinder-dry trees hit by beetle damage. With 600 people evacuated from homes, and nearly 900 firefighters on the scene, it is considered to be the worst fire to hit the Rio Grande National Forest....
...Are the beetles to blame for wilder wildfires? Not long ago, experts would have said yes. But more recent research suggests that the connection between Colorado's beetle infestation and the vulnerability to wildfires is more complex than that.
