Pine Beetle Infestation and FIre Risk

[Brian Brademeyer]

Friends of the Norbeck recently commissioned professional statistician Grant Foster to look at possible relations between large fires, on the one hand, and weather, logging, and beetle tree-mortality levels on the other.  We provided him with a century of data from the Black Hills National Forest, 1910-2009.

On February 10, 2012, Grant completed his analysis, and produced a detailed "white paper" entitled Pine Beetle Infestation and Fire Risk in the Black Hills (2.7mb pdf, 28 pages).

Grant also posted a more "accessible" (i.e., less mathematical) online version of this analysis at his Climate Blog Open Mind, entitled Pine Beetles and Fire Hazard in the Black Hills, that is available for public comments.  Readers are encouraged to read this blog-post on this important Black Hills issue.

Excerpts from

Pine Beetle Infestation and

Fire Risk in the Black Hills

However, if a causal relationship [between beetle-killed trees and fire risk] were as extreme as has been often suggested, amounting to a “tinderbox primed for wildfire,” then these data would have revealed it. Certainly a relationship cannot be ruled out – but just as certainly, the extremity which has been claimed in public and policy discourse can be ruled out. [p.16, emphasis original]

As far as the data indicate, the greater number of very large fires in recent years is simply due to the greater number of fires. [p. 17]

By no means does this prove that the recent [pine beetle] infestation in the Black Hills is due to warmer wintertime temperature, in fact more than one factor is likely at play. But it is highly suggestive that warming temperature, especially the decline is sustained hard freeze during winter, is an important factor in the dramatic increase in pine beetle populations noted over much of Western North America. [p. 23]

It is our conclusion that there is simply no evidence to support the idea that the massive tree kill due to mountain pine beetle attack has significantly enhanced the risk of wildfire in the Black Hills National Forest. Wildfire hazard is a crucial issue which must be addressed with as clear as possible a perception of the actual risk factors. A focus on pine beetle infestation seems misplaced, threatening to draw attention away from factors which have strong and demonstrable impact on fire hazard and to divert limited resources to less productive strategies. Surely, excessive rhetoric about the urgent fire danger posed by pine beetle infestation, sometimes to the point of hysteria, does not serve the public interest. [p. 24]

[Gail Zawacki]

I read this study and left a comment about it on Tamino's blog - so far he has not allowed it out of moderation to be visible.  Tamino (Grant Foster) for some reason doesn't want his readers to see any sort of challenge to his conclusions, but tree-lovers need to know that trees are being severely threatened by air pollution, even in places far from industrial areas where precursors originate.  Following is what I wrote, more can be found at my blog (http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/) and the website linked below:

At the top of page 4 in this report is a graph that also correlates with the increase in wildfires.

http://www.acap.asia/ozone/Ozone.pdf

It's from Japan, I chose it at random.  There are endless versions from any number of government agencies and academia.

Also, you might want to consider this new research published in January from Princeton

http://www.biogeosciences.net/9/271/2012/bg-9-271-2012.pdf

which investigates the global reductions in annual crop yield and quality from transboundary ozone pollution.

It seems worthy of consideration that since ozone is toxic to vegetation, and the rising constant background concentrations are responsible for diminishing annual crops by significant amounts, that wild perennial plants and trees will sustain cumulative damage by absorbing it season after season.  This explanation offers far more than mere correlation, after all.  It explains causation, specifically, two proven facts from repeated controlled fumigation experiments:

1.  plants and trees with compromised immunity from exposure to ozone are more susceptible to attacks from insects, disease and fungus; and

2.  plants and trees injured by exposure to ozone allocate less energy to their roots, making them more vulnerable to drought and wind.

Also pertinent is the now-documented fact that, indeed, forests are in decline everywhere on earth.  See:  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/01/science/earth/01forest.html?_r=2&...