From the Washington Post, an article worth reading on a subject that's depressingly well-known to Canadians, but probably unfamiliar to most Americans: the mountain pine beetle outbreak devastating forests in British Columbia. The damage has been colossal:
Surveys show the beetle has infested 21 million acres and killed 411 million cubic feet of trees -- double the annual take by all the loggers in Canada. In seven years or sooner, the Forest Service predicts, that kill will nearly triple and 80 percent of the pines in the central British Columbia forest will be dead.
Meanwhile, the beetle is moving eastward. It has breached the natural wall of the Rocky Mountains in places, threatening the tourist treasures of national forest near Banff, Alberta, and is within striking distance of the vast Northern Boreal Forest that reaches to the eastern seaboard.
Foresters and researchers agree that the principle culprit is global warming (because warmer winters, even by a few degrees, have not been severe enough to kill the native beetle and suppress its now-exponential population growth). So the pine beetle infestation is worrisome, not only for the severe ecological impacts, but because it appears to be an early sign of the devastation to be wrought by a warming atmosphere.
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Lonna Posted 7:20 am
05 Mar 2006
On our own mountain, fires 300 feet high (on the tops of exploding dead, dry pine trees) terrified us as we evacuated our children, pets (including a fish in the cup holder and parrots in cages), and photographs. Amazing how little we really needed to take with us--and how much I need to put those old photos on DVDs).
My 8-year-old son saw one wall of fire coming straight at us (we were driving down highway 330 from Running Springs--to the "bottom of the hill" at Highland.
He said, "Mom, cool, stop and take a picture."
I am a photographer and writer, working as journalist for the "Mountain News" at the time, and seriously thought of it, but we had no tripod with us, and it was nighttime. My 11-year-old daughter screamed, "Don't you dare stop. I don't want to die like this!"
I didn't stop. The long line of cars quietly made it down the highway before the fire swept across it. Those who didn't make it down the highway were diverted to Big Bear and the far side of the mountain to the back desert--a five-hour drive as opposed to our 45-minute drive.
Ironically, my daughter and I had both written to President Bush about the bark beetles and to "please send help to cut down the dead trees"--about two weeks before the fire. He later sent us a note and a photo of him & Laura--but didn't mention the trees or fire.
You can read Jessica's own account of what it was like evacuating a mountain and staying away for two weeks without knowing if her home would be there when she returned, on my website at http://www.lonnawilliams.com. You can also read my (longer) account, with some amazing photos I borrowed from the local fire department.
Don't take those British Columbia bark beetles lightly. Pray for rain. We even had a Sioux Indian tribe come and do a rain dance in Lake Arrowhead, for the water level of the lake had gone to a record low.
When the neighborhood water didn't work, the firetrucks had trouble getting water to fight the fire which burned 100,000 acres on our mountain, 1,000 homes and businesses--yet nobody was killed directly from the fire, and most of the towns at the top--and the schools and churches and businesses and neighborhoods--were spared.
The fire crossed Rim of the World highway to Strawberry Peak. It crossed the peak, but 1200 firefighters with backpacks and shovels said, as Gandalf did in "The Fellowship of the Ring" from "The Lord of the Rings" film trilogy,
"You shall not pass." And so many neighborhoods--and our wooden home--were saved from the fiery monster. The winds turned, the temperature lowered, and the Santa Ana winds from the eastern desert became ocean breezes from the west again. And it snowed in October--the first time since most of us could remember.
The fire was like "The Return of the KIng." When Gondor, the white city built on a mountain, needed help, a little hobbit lit the warning light which spread from mountain top to mountain top, until the riders of Rohan saw the call for help.
I have spent 3 summers (their winters) in New Zealand, and have seen the Southern Alps where those fires were filmed. We hope to go back to New Zealand--which does not see the kind of fires that happen in America and Canada. Our Kiwi friends were praying for us, sending us encouraging emails like "I, the Lord, will be with you through the fire and through the flood." (we later had a terrible flood in the ashes--that killed about 15 people, that following December--and my friend killed herself, for her uninsured business was burned, and she saw no hope). The Kiwis were amazed at the fire photos, and invited us to come back any time.
While we were evacuated and staying with friends in the high desert south of our mountains, hills to the southeast of us started fire. Jonathan (age 8) stood on a high rock with me and asked,
"Is it the end of the world?" as he saw Los Angeles, our mountains, Temecula, San Diego, and Orange County all ablaze.
"No," I replied, "but perhaps the end of our Southern California way of life--where we build houses by canyons or dead mountain trees, and the film crews show up before the fire trucks because there are so many fires.."
Cut down those dead trees while you can. Pray for rain. And call upon the Crest Forest Fire Department or the Lake Arrowhead Fire Department--who hung my photos on their walls. They would be glad to help, as the Kiwis sent firefighters to help us. I hope you never have to go through what we did--and nobody even asked us to evacuate.
Lonna Lisa Williams offers free selections from her books and photos at http://www.lonnawilliams.com
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Backcut Posted 3:26 pm
05 Mar 2006
The situation up there in BC seems as dire as other places I've seen in my career (the Bitterroot, the Tahoe Basin/Sierra Nevada in the 90's, the Black Hills and the San Bernardino, amongst others). One thing that many people don't figure into the equation is tree density in weakening the pines natural defenses against bark beetles. The pine forests of the past had very open understories and fires, both natural and ones set by natives kept the brush at bay. However, today's forests have had unnatural fire suppression for decades and man has enhanced cyclical droughts and their accompanying effects. These drought enhancements not only include so-called "global warming" impacts but also serious overstocking and species conversions have caused problems in killing off the very pines that were adapted to drier conditions. I'm certainly not going to debate the globlal warming issue but, I surely can't discount greenhouse gas potential to impact out climate. I just don't know enough about it to comment with any authority.
Again, thinning projects that balance the available water with the stocking levels will have some benefits to improve the pines natural defense against natural bark beetle infestations. The trouble comes when these overstocked stands run short of water and bark beetles explode into massive outbreaks, killing every tree for hundreds and hundreds of yards. Hopefully, these links to pictures I took will show and illustrate what I'm saying.
http://rogueimc.org/images/2005/04/4297.jpg
http://rogueimc.org/images/2005/04/4298.jpg
http://rogueimc.org/images/2005/04/4299.jpg
http://rogueimc.org/images/2005/04/4300.jpg
http://rogueimc.org/images/2005/04/4301.jpg
The first 2 are from the Bitterroot taken in 2004, showing many problems there that can be attributed to both past Forest Service mismanagement and unbridled "preservationism". The higher elevations in the wider picture are considered "potential lynx habitat", will not be managed with any kind of logging and are seemingly doomed to catastrophic fire.
The 3rd picture is from Crestline on the San Bernardino and every damn pine in the picture is dead. Note the perennial stream and the old growth pines that were overwhelmed by the bark beetles.
The 4th picture show the extent of the bark beetle damage at North Lake Tahoe in the early 90's. I think THAT picture surely speaks for itself.
Lastly, the 5th picture is on the Eldorado and depicts a forest that has so intense of a fuels buildup that catastrophic fire is also inevitable there. Even though this stand was slated for being included into a timber sale, I really can't see that a thinning would do much of anything beneficial. Five years before, we salvaged beetle kill and that didn't seem to make much of a dent in the fuels buildup. How would YOU deal with this sad situation?
Of course, logging is not the cure-all for what ails the forests. A "suite of tools" is at our disposal and the important thing is to choose the right "tool" for the job. If controlled burning is adequate to keep a handle on fuels buildups, then this is probably the preferred method, being the cheapest way to go, as well. Often times, live fuels need to be removed, and the thinning tool will need to be used.
Personally, I want to do what is right for the land and use the tool that best fits the conditions.
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amazingdrx Posted 5:11 am
06 Mar 2006
Would it be possible to use 1000s of pheremone traps that hold the beetles long enough to sterilize them (with radiation?), then release them?
Just a crazy shot in the dark. Drought and fire will probably still kill the trees. There goes the Lynx habitat anyway.
We have noticed a phenomenon here in Wisconsin in endangered species habitat, it seems that as human interaction with wildlife becomes more friendly species that formerly could not live close to human habitation are now accepting our presence and starting to recover.
I have a sinking feeling that global climate change will be many orders of magnitude worse than most now realize.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Marky48 Posted 12:29 pm
14 Mar 2007
I'm older than you, and have walked clearcuts for 20 years. My book "Against a Strong Current" outlines the work I've done and the people I've met along the way.
Environment II
Marky48
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Marky48 Posted 12:40 pm
14 Mar 2007
I used this story in writing a chapter of my global warming novel "Warm Front." This is the first chapter that's in the Simon & Schuster contest at Gather.com. My book answers "State of Fear" which, I consider a sick joke. Some actually believe it. I would add at their own peril.
Warm Front Chapter 1.
Marky48
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Nucbuddy Posted 1:44 pm
14 Mar 2007
Concrete does not burn.
monolithic.com/gallery/homes/braswell_fire
.
Lonna wrote: Pray for rain. We even had a Sioux Indian tribe come and do a rain dance in Lake Arrowhead, for the water level of the lake had gone to a record low.
When the neighborhood water didn't work, the firetrucks had trouble getting water to fight the fire
There is water in the sky -- 3,100 cubic miles of it. To get it flooding down on a fire, all that would be needed is a nuclear-powered condenser flown on a nuclear-powered aero-disc. Imagine this aero-disk, made of concrete and steel and one-mile in diameter:
konkle.com/dsoergel/toy.html
Wherever there is a forest-fire, the aero-disc hovers above and dumps cubic-miles of water.
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Maryartist Posted 12:21 am
22 May 2007
Does anyone know if there are specific types of pine that are resistant to beetles that we could begin to plant?
We are seriously heartbroken to watch our beloved forest disappearing before our eyes.
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