The State of the Trees · Episode 8 of 13 · 19 min
The Rockies Ledger: When the Forest Can't Grow Back
In the Interior West, drought, beetles and megafire now compound into a new arithmetic, and increasingly the conifers do not come back. Ponderosa fails to regenerate after high-severity fire, lodgepole's fire-triggered cones are defeated by short-interval reburns, and the region has flipped from carbon sink to source. Quaking aspen floods into burns where conifers fail, even as famous stands like Pando collapse.
Where it happens
- Rocky MountainsInterior West forests flipping from carbon sink to source
- Cameron Peak Fire scar, Colorado2020 fire where aspen seedlings established widely
- Pando, UtahGiant aspen clone in collapse under browsing and hot drought
- southwestern ColoradoSudden Aspen dieback at the dry edge
Timeline
- Mid-2000sSudden Aspen dieback named after Southwest hot drought
- 2010sBeetle outbreaks kill vast areas of lodgepole and other pines
- 2020Cameron Peak, Colorado's largest recorded wildfire, burns the Front Range
- Early 2020sSeveral Intermountain West states function as net carbon sources
- 2024Utah State University publishes first comprehensive Pando assessment
Still debated
Aspen is both expanding and collapsing: it gains ground in burns where conifers fail, yet iconic and dry-edge stands are dying. The forest that grows back may not be the forest that burned.
← PreviousThe Conifer Backbone: Is the Timber Engine of the West Holding?Next →The Eastern Woods: The Crisis Under a Healthy Canopy
