Bark Beetle is not the reason for wildfires

[bobcat]

Interesting article in the Seattle Times:

http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2020208531_barkbeetlexml.html

[Bob33]

That is interesting. I would like to see the long term data on "drought" for these areas.

[X-Force]

Interesting but they seem to want their cake and eat it too. They say that beetles dont cause wild fires to spread and that they could actually help prevent their spread because of the lack of canopy from dead trees. They also say that the droughts are causing the beetle populations to increase, while fire prevalence continues to increase.
If the drought is causing the beetle population to thrive wouldnt it also stem the increased threat of fire from the drought?

It does make sense that the fire load would decrease once the trees are void of needles.

The other thing this article didnt address is that once the trees die their roots no longer hold the soils in place... So more erosion could occur and may be more damaging then putting in roads thinning the trees and replanting...

[BOWHUNTER45]

  here is another bad subject for me to put my nose into  as you drive over Hwy 20 from Sedro Woolley to Winthrop you have Hundreds of acres of trees dying from the dang bettles ...So the state and all their greenies choose to leave them there to rot .. Why not cut them down and plant New Healthy ones  Dah !! Then you have these idiots who can not face the truth knowing the bettles killed the trees and there for they have died and there for they have caused fires ... I am lost as usual !! 

[logger]

I agree that it's not the reason for fires, I believe though that it's the reason they burn so hot. Every briefing I went to while on a fire they harped and harped about the beetle killed timber. As usaul the forest service will study it to death with little to no action on gettin in there and doing something about it. The  forest service has become the biggest group of leaf lickers there is,apparently studies pay big money and doing what is best for the resource is secondary.

[Humptulips]

 

No one wants to make a decision so they study it to death.

[dreamingbig]

  who said they were the reason?  What they do is provide a lot more fuel to burn so that the fires are bigger and hotter once started.

[motg9_6]

 

[BOWHUNTER45]

  What a joke ... the dang beetles kill the trees and then the trees become dried out because they are now dead ...what makes the fire burn hotter ? Birrr dirrr !!!! and yes the beetle is the main cause of the fires because they killed the trees in the 1st place ....why I never went to college is beyond me 

[Wazukie]

I din't kno dat a beetle could start a fire 

[Curly]

 

[MadHatter]

The moral of the story in this article is to push the climate change agenda... Four times in the story mention it, as if pounding saying the same thing over and over makes it more true...

[JLS]

The moral of the story in this article is to push the climate change agenda... Four times in the story mention it, as if pounding saying the same thing over and over makes it more true...

If you don't believe climate change is real you should.  One doesn't have to be an Al Gore groupie to see the effects of climate change in subalpine and montane environments across the Rocky Mountains and Pacific NW.

[motg9_6]

i believe in climate change, happens four time a year, spring, summer, fall, winter. Climate change is something that is used as poltical propaganda more than anyhting. do you think the earth has always been the same temperature??? hense the ice age, sever droughts etc. the earth goes through cycles get used to it. it happened before there were car humans and all these bad things that we "created".
  just my

[Skyvalhunter]

They can't say that a dead dry tree killed by a beetle hit by lightning isn't more likely to start a fire more than one still green or alive. They can twist the data any way they like to pacify their climate change agenda.