Black Hills National Forest

US Forest Service
Black Hills National Forest
1019 N. 5th Street
Custer, SD 57730
605-673-9200

Telephone for the
Hearing Impaired
605-673-9227

News Release

USDA Forest Service

Black Hills National Forest

Contact: Frank Carroll (605) 673-9216 or (605) 673-1504, or email us at r2 blackhills webinfo@fs.fed.us

DRAMATIC NEW PICTURES SHOW FOREST THINNING WORKS

CUSTER, SD: AUGUST 23, 2007

Ponderosa pine forests that have been thinned, prescribed burned, and logged are shaking off worsening pine beetle attacks and increasingly difficult wildfires, officials say.

“The proof that thinning works is there for anyone to see,” said Kurt Allen, an entomologist for the Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain forest health unit in Rapid City.

Aerial photography taken from a helicopter in the Black Hills National Forest Sunday and Monday, August 19 and 20, shows the devastating march of beetles across many areas of the Black Hills. Particularly hard hit areas include upper Spring Creek near the Medicine Mountain Boy Scout Camp, the entire forested area around Harney Peak, the Norbeck Wildlife Preserve, parts of Custer State Park, and a large area around Deerfield Lake.

Those same photos show large areas where logging and thinning took place and those areas are now free of insects and at low risk from catastrophic fires, Allen said.

“Our goal is to have healthy forests, forests that are green, diverse, and productive and great homes for wildlife and fish,” said Craig Bobzien, Black Hills forest supervisor. “To that end we need to actively thin our forests to help them fend off mountain pine beetles and reduce the risk of crown fires, especially in light of the continuing drought.”

“Pine beetles affected more than 150,000 acres of the 1.2 million acre Black Hills forest in the past few years,” Allen said. The attacks have been increasing in intensity and severity since about 1996 and have increased dramatically through the last seven drought years, he said.

“We’re thinning more than 50,000 acres a year,” said Dave Thom, Black Hills natural resources staff officer, “focusing on key areas like Hill City, Keystone, the Deerfield Lake area, and the community of Custer.” Thom said trees in the areas being thinned are shaking off insect attacks and are allowing foresters to more easily control wildfires and prescribed fires.

Foresters are not trying to cut the bugs out of the forest by going after trees that are already dead, Thom said. “We’re thinning and logging in areas of high risk from insects and fire so the bugs can’t get established and fires can burn at low intensity.” Trees that are thinned and logged and treated with prescribed fire don’t have to compete with so many other trees for water and nutrients. They grow faster, are healthier, and result in stronger more resilient forests, Thom said.

An important benefit of thinning forests is that wildfires are then much easier to control. Large hot fires have been burning an average of over 25,000 acres each year in the Black Hills. “Fires in thinned areas are ground fires and relatively easy for us to fight,” Thom said. “Fires in the thick bug-killed stands are showing extreme behavior that has given firefighters so much trouble this summer.” When the dead trees fall in a couple of years, the severity of fires resulting from all the large dead trees on the ground will make firefighting very difficult and cause severe damage to soils and forest flora.

“Thinning is working to keep forests and communities healthy and growing, and we have a lot more work ahead of us,” Bobzien said.

Officials are asking homeowners, realtors, city and county governments, and other landowners to immediately begin taking steps to ensure that homes and communities meet Firewise standards and that newcomers to the Black Hills understand the dangers as well as the pleasures of living in a fire environment.

View Video and Still Images from the aerial flight.