{"id":108210,"date":"2015-11-17T20:24:12","date_gmt":"2015-11-18T03:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/forest-officials-agree-beetle-infestation-doesnt-determine-fire-severity\/"},"modified":"2015-11-17T20:24:12","modified_gmt":"2015-11-18T03:24:12","slug":"forest-officials-agree-beetle-infestation-doesnt-determine-fire-severity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/forest-officials-agree-beetle-infestation-doesnt-determine-fire-severity\/","title":{"rendered":"Forest officials agree: Beetle infestation doesn\u2019t determine fire severity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Spruce
Spruce beetles have damaged large swaths of trees in the Rio Grande National Forest.<\/span>STEVE LEWIS\/Durango Herald file photo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Local forest officials say they are not surprised by a recent study downplaying the impact spruce beetle infestation has on severe wildfires.<\/p>\n

Researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder last month published findings that infestations may not be to blame for increased severity of wildfires. The study was published in the journal Ecological Applications.<\/p>\n

Researchers examined five subalpine fire zones in the San Juan Mountains of Southwest Colorado. Factors such as topography and weather conditions play a larger role than beetle kill in determining the severity of Colorado\u2019s subalpine wildfires, according to the study.<\/p>\n

Lary Floyd, assistant fire management officer for the U.S. Forest Service\u2019s Rio Grande National Forest, said the study lines up with his office\u2019s own observations of the forest.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe report \u2026 was not shocking and it actually kind of supported, in a different way, some thoughts that a couple of us here locally had come to,\u201d Floyd said. \u201cWe\u2019re not saying that the bugs aren\u2019t affecting fire behavior, but perhaps not to the degree that many would propose.\u201d<\/p>\n

There have been reports of beetle kill above Vallecito Reservoir, on the west side of La Plata County near Mancos and in the Shenandoah region.<\/p>\n

While the forests of La Plata County likely won\u2019t experience the same devastation as the mountains around Wolf Creek, it is a forest health issue that experts are closely watching.<\/p>\n

Beetles have infested more than 1.2 million acres of Engelmann spruce and subalpine fir forests across Colorado. With several large wildfires occurring across the state over the past decade, some fire officials opined that the beetle\u2019s destructive spread may be a contributing factor.<\/p>\n

Dr. John Griffiths, a Durango resident and retired firefighter, raised concerns with downplaying the impact beetle infestation has on wildfires.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have seen the damage the spruce bark beetle has done,\u201d Griffiths said. \u201c(The report didn\u2019t have) anything to say about the fire hazard that hundreds of thousands of acres of dead trees represent. When those dead trees burn, you will admit, the spruce bark beetle will have had an awful impact on the severity and extent of those fires.\u201d<\/p>\n

Forest officials are careful to point out that intensity and severity of wildfires are different. The study focused only on severity.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also not much to infer from the study about the nature of fuels, officials said. Spruce fir forests are always heavily loaded with fuel, whether dead or alive.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of us approach it as that forest was going to burn with the conditions of the weather, etc.,\u201d Floyd said. \u201cThe difference the bugs make would be that instead of an 80,000-acre fire, it would have been a 60,000-acre fire, or instead of 150-foot flames, it had 120-foot flames.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kent Grant, district forester for the Durango District of the Colorado State Forest Service, agreed that beetle infestation is only one part.<\/p>\n

\u201cCU has a good point, but you have to balance it with what conditions are like at the time,\u201d Grant said.<\/p>\n

Forest officials say they are focused on salvaging dead trees for commercial value and also dealing with safety issues, such as dead trees falling down. The timber industry is a way to salvage the dead trees.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re finding out that they can really help us in managing the forest for forest health, which includes insect and disease problems and wildfire concerns,\u201d Grant said. \u201cIt\u2019s just another tool in the bag that forest managers can use.\u201d<\/p>\n

Floyd said the recent study probably won\u2019t change management practices.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce we\u2019ve identified a value that we\u2019re protecting \u2026 we are going to treat that anyway,\u201d he said. \u201cThe fact that it\u2019s beetle kill, it might go up in priority a bit \u2026 but in extreme conditions, it wouldn\u2019t matter anyway whether it\u2019s dead or alive.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

downplays correlation between tree die-offs, fires<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":108211,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[21,84],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-108210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-cortez","tag-wildfire"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108210"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=108210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}