Jefferson County is cutting down trees to prevent fires, but some advocates and scientists are hot on research that shows there are better ways.
says it wants to “promote larger diameter and fire-resistant trees such as ponderosa pine” as part of its overall management strategy.
The number of ponderosa pines there is high, and Germaine says JCOS wanted to get to the forest before a fire did. developed by the Colorado Forest Restoration Institute , “Some forest types, such as ponderosa pine mixed conifer, have a fire regime that historically experienced frequent , low-to-moderate severity fires , that varied in size.”
Not all forests fit that mold, though, including those populated by ponderosa pines, points out Chad Hanson, practicing ecologist and director of the“The science strongly contradicts that narrative,” he says. “This is true for forests all across the West. This is true in the Colorado Front Range. … Everywhere scientists have looked at this, we've found the same thing: that historical forests were much denser overall than the U.S.
Schlossberg’s concerns come not only from the lack of scientific considerations in the forest-thinning plan, but also from the age of some of the downed trees. According to Germaine, the department doesn’t remove trees that are technically considered “old growth.” Those trees provide habitat for small mammals and birds and, if they are over 150 years old, were likely around before European intervention in American forests.
“Why is it that ponderosa pine can grow that old?” he asks. “The answer is because they're fire-resistant trees.”Josh Schlossberg “The notion that removing trees from the forest will curb fire has been soundly discredited,” Hanson says. “Wildfires are driven mostly by weather and climate, and therefore also by climate change. In drought years, you get the ignition, and you get hot, dry, windy conditions. Those are conditions for fires. It's not mainly about forest density.”
Winds can then blow through forests more quickly, and fire can spread faster. A 2012 investigation found that during the, thinned forests sometimes burned more than non-thinned areas nearby. “Possibly a majority of the residents in western Jefferson County understand a couple of things,” he says. “They know what a wildfire catastrophe looks like. … They don't want Evergreen and Conifer to look like that, and they know that there's a chance that they could if we don't thin those forests.”
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