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Apr 12, 2008 7:25 pm US/Mountain
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Rocky Nat'l Park Fights Pine Beetles With Burner
ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK, Colo. (CBS4) ―
Pine beetles continue to be a viscious killers of Colorado's trees. In Rocky Mountain National Park the beetles have killed almost every tree on the west side and are they are now heading east.
Some people slow down the beetles by covering downed trees with plastic or using sprays, but Rocky Mountain National Park is trying something newer and more aggressive -- fighting the beetles with fire.
An air curtain burner is used mostly for burning trees that still have live pine beetles in them, but it's now being used to kill off any remaining beetles in dead trees in the park.
"We're burning (dead trees) because we don't want the pine beetles to continue to spread," forestry biologist Brian Verhulst told CBS4.
Often the bark beetles lay eggs in the trees, and simply cutting up a downed tree won't get rid of the beetle larvae.
"Even if you cut the tree down they will still continue to mature inside that tree," Verhulst said.
The burner, which heats up to 1,800 degrees, cost the park $80,000. It kills the larvae while blowing air builds up enough heat to burn green wood and burns up nearly all the particles in the smoke so it burns cleaner than a regular fire.
"If we left that material unburned, this summer those beetles would emerge from those rounds and fly to the nearest tree," Verhulst said.
Verhulst said crews will more than double the number of beetle infested trees they cut in the park this year. Since beetles are a native species, the point is not to eradicate pine beetles in the backcountry of the park.
"But what we do want to do is try to prevent our trees in our campgrounds from all being killed, trees in culturally significant areas like histories buildings and ranches from being killed."
The timber crews will move the new burner to the west side of the park for the summer.
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