In the spirit of “We’d like to help,” I’d like to share what I’ve learned. I don’t share any of this as an expert in forestry, wildfire science, or disaster mitigation. I’m learning as I go, largely because circumstances have required me to learn quickly. Like many people in our community, we’ve found ourselves confronting things we had hoped would remain abstract concerns: pine beetle infestations, the loss of beloved trees, wildfire risk, difficult decisions about mitigation, and the unsettling realization that what happens on one property can affect everyone around it.

What I’ve learned so far has come through asking questions, talking with foresters and other professionals, reading, researching, and sometimes discovering that the answers are more complicated than I expected. I’ve also learned that there is a tremendous amount we can do — and that understanding what those things are may be the first step toward making better decisions for our own properties and for one another.

So this isn’t meant to be a guide from someone who has it all figured out. It’s simply a sharing of what I’ve learned thus far, in the hope that some of it may be useful to someone else who is beginning to navigate these same questions. If nothing else, perhaps we can learn from one another before circumstances force us all to learn the hard way.

I have managed to piece together a combination of agencies to mitigate as best we can, as I see our location as a crucial intersection when it comes to emergency situations. We’ve offered parts of our property for an installed dry-well specifically designated for the fire department to refill their trucks with water and for an installed emergency call box. Access to both, and having an emergency escape route, are important. We feel a sense of responsibility to try and minimize the spreading pests so that others don’t have to deal with the impacts as acutely. It’s expensive and heartbreaking. I have learned a lot as we navigate the process, and continue to learn more each day. 

Promptly removing and properly treating confirmed infested trees is one of the most important things we can do to protect the remaining trees. Once a ponderosa is infested, it generally cannot be saved. The priority becomes preventing the developing beetles beneath the bark from emerging and flying to the next trees. Colorado State Forest Service recommends removing and properly treating/disposing infested trees BEFORE the summer flight period. Adult mountain pine beetles typically begin flying in July and early August, and most activity concludes by early September. Our tree cutting project started in the spring of this year before the evidence of infestation exploded. We were grateful for the help and expertise of the Four Mile Fire Crew to get that started. Then massive wildfires started erupting across the state and west, and the crew was pulled and reassigned to fight those fires, putting our project on hold until now.

I would like to push back gently against the idea that “pheromone packets are iffy” when comparing them to tree injections. Verbenone is the method I would look to first from an environmental perspective. It is not a conventional insecticide. It mimics a natural bark beetle communication signal that essentially tells incoming beetles: “No vacancy.” It can be particularly useful around homes and structures, near water where spraying is undesirable, on particularly beloved or irreplaceable trees, and where you want to avoid broad insecticide exposure (like in areas near water or where you don’t want it seeping into well water).

I would not rely on tree injections…. This is probably the biggest surprise in the available information. Tree injections sound appealing because the chemical is contained within the tree rather than sprayed over the bark. However, the Colorado State Forest Service currently says injections are inconsistently effective against mountain pine beetle. The beetles attack rapidly and in large numbers, and the injected insecticide may not move through the phloem quickly enough to prevent infestation. Also, I would be particularly interested in the potential for exposure of woodpeckers, nuthatches, chickadees and other bark foraging birds. These birds eat larvae and insects associated with the potentially treated trees.

We make the best decisions we can given the available information. 

On our property, we viewed the trees as if in three categories:

Category A: Already infested

Remove as promptly as possible and ensure the bark/wood is treated or disposed of in a way that kills developing beetles before emergence.

Category B: Beautiful, healthy, irreplaceable trees.

These are the ones I will actively defend with verbenone or other appropriate semiochemical program, installed before the next beetle flight period.

Category C: The rest of the forest.

We will continue to invest in forest resilience with strategic thinning, reducing overcrowding, encouraging species diversity, monitoring for fresh beetle attacks, and reducing drought stress where possible.

My bottom-line recommendation: Don’t put all your faith in injections. Remove and properly treat infested trees, use pheromone/semiochemical deterrents where they fit, reserve insecticide sprays for truly high-value trees if the threat level justifies them, and use this painful thinning process to create a healthier, more diverse forest that is less vulnerable in the future.

The Four Mile Fire Crew and Good People Tree Service are knowledgable and have taught me a lot. In addition, the official CSFS guidance on management is here:

https://csfs.colostate.edu/forest-management/common-forest-insects-diseases/mountain-pine-beetle/management/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

And this page has particularly useful information on preventing attacks, pheromones, sprays, injections, and disposal:

https://csfs.colostate.edu/forest-management/common-forest-insects-diseases/mountain-pine-beetle/resources/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Once de-barked, we plan to mill some of the removed trees, with the help of Boyd and Micah, for a few home renovation projects. I am so grateful for that silver lining.

And something else I think is worth considering as a community regarding the beetle kill and its potential spread: Colorado law does allow negligence claims involving fires and recognizes that landowners can have duties regarding dangerous conditions on their property. A neighbor’s knowing failure to address a documented and unreasonable wildfire hazard could potentially become part of a liability claim if that failure can be shown to have materially contributed to another person’s losses.

Amy