..or you can thin the stands to a spacing over 15'. The bug that's killing your trees is 1st cousin to the Western Pine Beetle. Both have a "flight limitation" of about 15'. Once they hit about that limit, they hit the ground and have to get some altitude to fly again. It's pretty rare that it happens, so thinning the stands to a 15' spacing works really well. The natural course of how a pine forest grows creates that spacing pretty naturally, but since we've taken fire out of the picture, we have to substitute thinning for burning (with "jackpot burns" you can get get both at the same time). This is what happens when bureaucrats and environmentalists start making decisions that professional foresters should be making.
Also, why don't Canadians and Californians use fire safe practices? This is from Marin County in California and it's spot on and yet every couple of years, Californians die in fires because they can't follow some simple rules:
https://www.marincounty.org/~/media...nsible-space/marin-landscape-brochurerev2.pdf
Now we've got Canadians doing the same thing. It would be different if this was heavily forested areas, but this is pine forests and sage brush. Keep trees away from your home, dry material cleaned up, water at the ready (a big sprinkler on your roof will provide substantial protection from embers), keeping your lawn green instead of brown creates a natural low fire break. It's not that hard to do, but every year we have these massive evacuations because people aren't smart enough to take simple steps to keep their homes safe. Yeah, everyone wants a house hidden in the trees, but when you live in these kind of places, that's just plain stupid. Cut the pine trees back 40' from your house and create either a dead zone (nothing but dirt) or a green zone (nothing but green grass) around your home (or both - green up close and dead further out).
I'm sorry, but you have no clue what you're talking about. First it IS the Western Pine Beetle and your measures MIGHT have worked 35 years ago. You also seem to have a serious miss on the exact scope and terrain of the area, like mountain sides that go straight up and down, no roads for hundreds and hundreds of miles, nor do you seem to understand your plan would cost more than 10 years GDP
Two, what the **** do you mean "fire safe practices"? We already fine your ass over $1,200 for throwing a cigarette out the car window, ban campfires and in dry times likes these no open camp stoves. For your information 85% of these fires were lighting strike, most of the others were spontaneous combustion. The rest were created by the 'children' they make along the way, red hot flying debris from exploding cedar trees carry several meters and start their own family. You don't seem to realize these Godzilla fires create their own climate, burn so hot 40% of the water dropped on it turns to steam before it hits. They create their own winds, often gale force because of the heat and cold air rushing in and they create their own lightening.
Nor do you realize, and I wouldn't expect you to that these monsters have attitude; everyone who fought the Barrier fires in '07 said she was an angry fire...this one it is being said "is just plain evil".
Thirdly, California, Colorado, Wyoming, Oregon, Idaho, Alaska, Alberta and BC are part of a network, where they train together, exchange new information and often join other jurisdictions in help fighting it. So, you can get the Canada-America thing and shove it, when it comes to fighting monster wild fires we are one, all using the same techniques. There are Americans at these fires you can bet, if for nothing else than to learn.
In closing, this is a result of bad politics. When a big part of Yellowstone Park burned in the 1960's, they allowed to grow back naturally where they discovered a lot more about forests and the Apex-Emergent relationship. But, buried in the back pages was a warning from three men, American and Canadian [I don't remember the ratio] who warned that the current forestry policy of putting out fires was in fact creating a monster down the road.
Forests need the cold and the fire kill to stay "alive" in the forest sense as in 1,000 years plus, it gets rid of the underbrush, kills off bark beetles and other pests and adds much needed potash to the accumulating carbon-nitrogenic waste. Their report stated that unless a new policy was established there was danger of monster fires.
The policy was eventually adopted by Alaska and BC, but far too late and we have Pine Beetle, Monster Fires and an unhealthy forest as a result.
