Four years into the drought, bark beetles did what was expected of them in the conifer woods of Tuolumne County. They bored into the trunks of moisture-stressed pines, cutting off the trees’ nutrient flow. Millions of dead trees mark the landscape, some of them in towns along Highways 108 and 120.

“This is a nightmare,” said Steve Brink, vice president for public resources at the California Forestry Association. “Dead trees right next to power lines, right next to houses, right next to businesses.”

He spoke on a tour bus making its way Thursday through Twain Harte, Mi-Wuk Village and other locales dealing with the outbreak. The places have long drawn retirees and visitors – many of them from the Northern San Joaquin Valley – with their forested charm. Now folks might wonder when a tree will fall and crush them.

Tuolumne is near the northern edge of a scourge that started in the southern Sierra Nevada and has killed an estimated 66 million trees as of June. Experts on the tour said it could top 100 million by year’s end. The beetles hit hardest in ponderosa pines, not the firs and cedars that also are part of the mixed-conifer belt. The tour also showcased a new approach to forest management that could produce lumber while reducing the risk of beetles and wildfires.

One of the sponsors was the Tuolumne County Alliance for Resources and Environment, which advocates for more logging to supply the county’s two sawmills. The other was Yosemite-Stanislaus Solutions, a coalition of industry people, environmentalists and others concerned about the Stanislaus National Forest and adjacent Yosemite National Park.

From The Modesto Bee: https://www.modbee.com/news/article107357942.html