Jul 26, 2006 8:07 am US/Mountain
Business Turns Beetle Kill Trees Into Cabins
by Andrea Lopez
FRISCO, Colo. (CBS4) ―
A family business in Summit County has been working to turn the devastation of pine beetle killed trees into something beautiful and useful.
'Breckenridge Timber To Log' just bought a machine from Finland so it can fill orders for pine beetle products.
Female pine beetles leave behind a blud fungus or stain on the wood of trees. That fungus is what eventually kills the trees.
The colored stain that the beetle leaves on the wood is appealing to many people.
Therese Dayton and her family are using the dead trees to create anything from cabins to planters.
"We have a market that is coming to us and telling us what they want and we are responding," Dayton said.
By removing the dead trees from the forest, the business is reducing the fire danger. By taking the bark off the trees, workers are also killing any beetles that are left behind and preventing them from spreading to healthy trees.
(© MMVI CBS Television Stations, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
