Is Colorado cutting down too many trees to fight wildfires? These environmentalists think so

One unseasonably warm morning in December, Democratic state Rep. Tammy Story stood on the edge of a trail winding through the Flying J Ranch open space park in Jefferson County staring into a chunk of forest where downed trees were scattered like matchsticks. 

Story is an avid hiker. She wore sturdy shoes and carried a yellow daypack. She’d been cruising along the trail pointing out this bird on that branch, those deer in the shadows, when she came to the part of the forest with the toppled trees.  

It sat next to an area that had been clear cut as part of Jefferson County’s 2022 Open Space Forest Health Plan to reduce tree density and fuel sources in areas the county had identified as having severe risk for wildfire. So far, 1,000 of the 25,000 acres the county manages between Evergreen and Conifer had been treated to create fuel breaks the county says can slow fire spread and save homes. The plan calls for 800,000 trees to be cut down. 

The spindly lodgepole pines Story pointed to were the collateral damage of thinning. 

“See them?” she asked. “They’re skinny and tall with most of their vegetation on top. So they don’t have great root systems — they’re like dog hairs. We had a big storms come through last January and April with 80-mile-per-hour winds and gusts as high as 100. When trees grow close together they become this wall, protecting each other.”

But the trees on the edge of the cleared area were susceptible to the strong winds and didn’t benefit from trees around them, she said. “The fire mitigation, in the form of clear cutting, paved the way for the large number of blown down trees, above and beyond the thousands of clear cut trees harvested.”

As Story spoke, her intensity grew, along with her decibel level. That’s because she is part of a contingent of people who think Colorado is ruining wildlife habitat, stealing shade, fouling rivers and putting its forests — and communities — at risk through what they call destructive management practices and unnecessary logging contracts. And they are running headlong into residents who don’t want their houses burned down and officials who are trying to protect homes and forest health. 

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