Brief by Allen Best
Timber – December 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
Foresters have been warning that beetle-killed forests will become ever more dangerous, now that up to 90% of lodgepole pine trees in parts of Colorado have died. Dead trees, after all, often fall, and the root systems for lodgepole pine are particularly shallow.
Recently, that’s what happened near Grand Lake. Logging contractor Kevin Pellini, 43, was killed near his truck when wind pushed over a tree, causing massive head injuries.
“It just fell over,” Grand County Coroner Brenda Bock told the Middle Park Times. “The dead tree’s root system was so shallow that it didn’t take much for it to fall over.”
