Zak Wood / Colorado Daily

Boulder County Parks and Open Space employee, Vanessa Lane-Miller, talks with colleagues prior to a workshop on the Mountain Pine Beetle in the Front Range, Wednesday in the UMC room 235.

The University of Colorado hosted a workshop at the University Memorial Center on Wednesday regarding Mountain Pine Beetles and their impact on forests in the Front Range area.

The current pine beetle infestation began in the 1990s and has been occurring due to numerous conditions favorable to the beetles, such as droughts and forest life-cycles. Pine beetles tend to favor trees that are aged or weakened.

Beetle-killed trees in Colorado are "widespread west of the Peak to Peak Highway," said Christine Walsh, the District Ranger for the Boulder Range District. "It tends to still be concentrated on the highest side."

"Our hits are so recent, there aren't large areas with red needles on the trees," Walsh said. Red needles may indicate a forest at risk for a wildfire.

The pine beetle infestation is also growing, according to Walsh, with a large increase in recent years.

"We're seeing each little pocket become a large pocket," Walsh said.

Speakers at the workshop included members of the USDA Forest Service, the Rocky Mountain Research Station, the Colorado State Forest Service, as well as presentations from the Colorado State University Extension.

Pine beetles in the Front Range area tend to attack the ponderosa and lodgepole species of trees, oftentimes killing the tree during its life cycle, while reproducing enough to attack surrounding trees. Large areas of beetle-killed trees may be seen in areas such as Allenspark and Eldora. Trees that have been recently killed have a yellow or orange color, while older trees turn gray.

Also discussed at the workshop was the effect of pine beetles on forest-fire risks and risks to the watershed.

"Without people, wildfires are just natural disturbances," said Jack Cohen, a speaker at the workshop from the Rocky Mountain Ranger Station.

"We are the thing that is the most flexible," Cohen said referring to the human element in wildfire concerns. "We can get rid of the threat to our houses, physically."

While it is undisputed that pine beetles impact the trees they attack, there is often disagreement concerning the extent of that impact on other areas, such as wildfires.

"The science story about Lodgepole Pine and Mountain Pine Beetles and fire had not been clarified very well," said Merrill Kaufmann, a speaker at the workshop from the Nature Conservancy and formerly with the Rocky Mountain Research Station.

"There appears to be some conflict in the story," Kaufmann said. "People were making some statements that seemed to be in conflict with others. No one knew the whole story."

Kaufmann and other scientists held a workshop earlier to discuss these issues, and hopefully arrive at some conclusions.

"This was a very good process," Kaufmann said, "difficult at times."

"I worked hard to make this group of scientists as inclusive as possible," Kaufmann said.

Kaufmann's workshop group, called the Front Range Fuel Treatment Working Group, included local government agencies as well as "scientists from as far as British Colombia," Kaufmann said.

"I've often had this view of the collaborative process," Kaufmann said. "The people not included are the source of your criticism."

Contact Steven Sinclair about this story at (303) 443-6272, ext. 113, or at editor@coloradodaily.com.