Paul Bunyan may have flinched at hearing the U.S. Forest Service's latest attempt at feeling trees: In Montana, the Forest Service recently experimented with using nitrate-based explosives to fell large volumes of beetle-killed trees, according to the Missoulian.
The rotting beetle-killed trees are bad for several reasons. There is the threat of forest fire, and the trees fall unpredictably, making them dangerous for sawyers and cutting machines alike, the Forest Service's Gordon Ash told the Missoulian. The experiment took place around Montana's Pioneer Mountain Scenic Byway, and the Forest Service was searching for the best kind of explosives, and the most efficient use of personnel and time.
The number of beetle-killed trees prompted the Forest Service to try dynamiting; "We just don't have a whole lot of really good sawyers," Charlie Showers, an engineering program leader at the Missoula Technology and Development Center, told the Missoulian.
The experiment showed promise. The Forest Service said there is "little effect" on surrounding wildlife, and that the technique is going to be a "viable tool" in mitigating danger posed by beetle-killed trees.
