Heidi, you have no idea what you are talking about. Colorado forests can’t exist without fire.
Ecological Adaptations:
Lodgepole pine is adapted to high mountain slopes at elevations usually above 6,000 feet. Reproduction is best attained in areas that have been cleared either by man’s activity or as a result of fire.
Rocky Mountain lodgepole pine produces serotinous cones which do not open at maturity because they are sealed shut by a resinous bond between the cone scales. These cones remain on the tree for years and require temperatures between 113 and 140 degrees F (45-60 C) to melt the resin and release the seed. In nature, only forest fires generate temperatures of this magnitude within a tree’s crown.
h?t to Marc Morano
Libs don’t have expertise. They have their cult, Goo Goo Gaia, and their fellow cultists.
They don’ neeeed no steeenkeen expertise.
It seems as if the climate crew were poised and waiting for the 1st hot spell so that they couid launch a propaganda offensive, These clowns have figured out that AGW alarmism works best during a heat wave. All of that weather isn’t climate stuff has been forgotten with the cold days of winter. How can anybody believe these guys when they practice these obviously dishonest tactics?
Sensationalism trumps common sense again. Fires in the forest would be a ‘disaster’ only if they didn’t occur.
If a burning tree falls in an uninhabited forest does mindless sensationalism still occur?
The Jack pine we have here in the Upper Midwest has the same need for fire to open its cones. The big problem comes from practices of putting out fires, and when you end up with a big fire from all the extra fuel, the fire gets much hotter and sterilizes the ground. Much harder to grow the trees after that happens, if the seeds weren’t burned up.
MN adopted a policy of letting the fires go in the Boundary Waters wilderness, as there are no people living there. They only fight them if they start heading towards the areas where people are living around the outskirts of the wilderness. We instead log off through select and clear cutting methods, and then replant in our other forested regions to keep them healthy, which in turn, keeps a healthy big and small game population for our hunting seasons.
I guess according to Heidi C, the fires in 1871 which were far worse and killed thousands were nothing compared to this little fire in Colorado. Heidi is nothing more than a propaganda tool.
Well, it’s no wonder why Cullen is so idiotic, she came from that propaganda spewing, baseless Weather Channel.
I believe the hype about fire being essential for the renewal of forests , which dates back at least to an influential article on the ecology of forests in Scientific American back in the 1960s , is way overblown . Clearly it is irrelevant for the mountain forests of the Front Range in Colorado . A most basic observation is that neither the indigenous pine or aspen on our own property need fire to produce saplings every year , whatever species they are .
More generally , Whenever we drive up CO 67 and 126 to Denver , we pass portions of the 250,000 hectare 2002 Hayman fire and portions of another fire nearer Buffalo Creek . I moved out here from Manhattan in 2005 and one of the most unexpected observation was how these forest fires here take decades to recover . And they don’t recover by seedlings sprouting up all over . There is more recovery from stands of mature trees along ridge lines and other islands which happened to not be totally killed . It then appears that reseeding slowly spreads out from them . And by “slowly” I mean it’s been a decade since the Hayman fire and anybody taking the drive I suggested can see the still massively scarred land .
The firestorm which consumed some neighborhoods along the west side of Colorado Springs were not so much build in a “wrong” place ( as might be said for the homes scattered up in the High Park fire west of Fort Collins – or the 100+ destroyed in the Hayman , as that they did not have a proper “moat” between themselves and the forests to the west . They were , in fact , distinctly on the out slopes of the Rampart Range , not even up in canyons . What happened was , with a drought fueled fire all ready raging in the mountains above , a sudden strong evening wind straight from the west blew the fire down the mountain slopes and across the space between the mountains and the neighborhoods – and the neighborhoods . I commented to my brother when the , ironically , cool wind blew past us , along CO67 about straight west of the Air Force Academy , that this was not good news for Colorado Spring .
Lodgepole Pines can not germinate without fire.
The massive Aspen groves in the Sangre De Cristo Mountains are the result of the 1890 fire.
I don’t follow that . You are saying the pines did not repopulate the area after the file ? Aspen did ?
In areas where Aspen trees grow easily, they take over burn areas very quickly. After a 150 years or so, the Aspen forests get replaced by pines which grew in their shade.
BTW , the SA article I remember from the 1960s was on the Ecology of Fire , not “Forests” but it was influential in the “let em burn” school of forest management .
Certainly from observation , the factors determining dominance of aspen and pine are not simple . They are in a fascinating decadal paced dance .
But clearly the Sangre De Cristo example says nothing about Lodgepole Pine .
Much more obviously , fire maintains many grass lands .