Colorado's mountain pine beetle epidemic, the state's largest on record, has exploded so far beyond human control that only wildfire, a deep freeze or starvation will stop the devastation, foresters say.

The impact of the infestation - more than 1,000 square miles have been scarred by decaying trees - has been compared with what happened in the late 1800s, when miners ravaged the forests for wood and carelessly sparked countless fires.

"We've never seen it so widespread, at such a scale," said Kim Vogel, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Forest Service and part of a beetle-fighting coalition in northern Colorado. "There are things we can do (to protect some areas). . . . What we're not going to do is stop the beetle."

The colossal die-off of the mountains' signature stands of lodgepole pine has government foresters, city officials, resort operators and homeowners gearing up for a busy spring and summer.

Carrying the fight to the bugs

They're spraying high-value trees with beetle-repelling pesticides, thinning pockets of forests, preparing small, controlled burns to reduce the threat of major fires and clearing deadwood near towns to insulate properties.

"We're basically salvaging beetle-killed trees," said Rick Newton, Dillon District ranger for the U.S. Forest Service, of efforts in his region. "We're way beyond control mechanisms at this point."

The outbreak overtaking the state's forests, described by some as a slow-moving fire, has so overwhelmed some areas that ecologists believe the beetles will soon run out of susceptible, century-old trees to colonize, paving the way to their own population crash.

"They just continue to build until they pretty much eat themselves out of house and home," Newton said, tagging them a "boom and bust" species. "Within the next two or three years, we're expecting the beetle will run its course, at least locally (in Summit County)."

They may have already done so in the Williams Fork area of Grand County, where Jen Chase of the Colorado State Forest Service said scientists may be seeing a bug collapse "because most of the trees in that area have been hit."

Even so, throughout Grand and Summit counties, losses of mature lodgepole - those larger than 5 inches in diameter - will reach 80 percent to 90 percent before the bugs run out of hosts, according to some predictions.

A report released in February by the state Forest Service said that pine beetle populations had "exploded" and that 660,000 acres of infested forest represented Colorado's most severe mountain pine beetle outbreak in "recorded history."

In addition, the report said, the insects had killed about four times as many trees per acre in 2006 than they did in 2005.

Freeze would do wonders

Many bug watchers have pinned their hopes on an early winter deep freeze, such as those credited for helping end Colorado beetle epidemics in the 1950s and 1980s.

A decade-long beetle spree in the Flat Tops Wilderness Area crashed in 1952, in large part, scientists believe, because of temperatures that plunged 30 to 56 degrees below zero in several days, freezing the bugs under the bark. Another method that could slash beetle numbers: wildfire.

A big blaze would engulf dead, dying and newly infested trees and take the bugs with them. But foresters, residents, business owners and the millions of Coloradans dependent on clean water flowing from the mountains would rather avoid that.

Beetle-killed trees, especially at the stage before they've lost their reddening needles, "go up like roman candles," said Sandy Briggs, head of the Mountain Pine Beetle Task Force in hard-hit Summit County.

"They won't be ground fires. (Fire) would be roaring through the crowns," Briggs said.

There's general agreement this latest epidemic has been buoyed by warm summers that further stress trees, and warm winters, which help larvae survive.

Whether that is tied to global warming is a matter some scientists embrace more readily than others.

Whatever the case, throw in longterm drought and an aging lodgepole forest - and its most beetle-vulnerable stage - and ecologists say nature created the perfect recipe for a tree-bug explosion.

Beetle epidemic a natural process

"The vast majority of our forests are like candy to these guys," said Brad Piehl, a Breckenridge-based environmental consultant.

As bad as it is, foresters say the beetle epidemic is a natural process. It's nature's way of recycling the forest in an era when humans living amid all the trees have demanded wildfire suppression and often are opposed to logging operations.

"It's the right time for it to be happening at this scale, given these warm winters and hotter summers," Vogel said. "It's prime conditions for beetles to thrive and grow."

hartmant@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5048

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