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May 10, 2007 11:55 pm US/Mountain
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10 Counties To Meet To Fight Against Pine Beetle
by Andrea Lopez
VAIL, Colo. (CBS4) ―
Ten Colorado counties in the high country are scheduled to meet Friday to find ways to fight the pine beetle.
The pine beetle has destroyed hundreds of thousands of acres of trees in Colorado. Now a group called the Colorado Bark Beetle Cooperative will try to figure out how to stop it. The experts are especially concerned about the fire danger the beetles leave behind.
The 10 counties will look at the issues when the meet in Vail Friday. They are going to look at the scope of the pine beetle problem and what they can do about it.
"This is the largest mountain pine beetle epidemic that Colorado has ever seen," Jan Hackett with the Colorado Forest Service said. "We have approximately 1.5 million acres of lodge pole pine and in 2006 there were 660,000 acres infested."
The beetle mainly attacks mature lodge pole pines. The devastation is so evident because Colorado lodge pole forests are basically all the same age and it's a perfect feeding ground for the beetle.
"Eighty to ninety percent of the lodge pole pine are those larger trees that are going to die," Don Carroll with the United States Forest Service said.
Foresters may not be able to stop the beetle during this epidemic, but they are going to try to protect the communities with infected pines by having dead and highly flammable pines removed.
"We're removing dead fuels from around homes, communities and schools," Carroll said.
Foresters also want to plan for new forests to replace the ones that are killed off. They plan to be active while the forests grow to help the pines become resistant to the beetle.
"We don't want the trees to all grow the same age," Hackett said. "We want to do some thinning, some cuts and add species diversity to make the forest healthier."
Legislatures and leaders from the U.S. Forest Service are scheduled to be at the meeting in Vail. They plan to work with the involved counties on some of the short-term goals dealing with the fire danger and the long-term visions like building healthy forests.
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