Getting your player ready...
Coloradans might not recognize some areas of their state parks this summer as crews plan to chop down 6,000 trees at risk of or already infested with pine beetles — bringing the number of felled trees to about 11,000 since November.
The gaunt forest clearings will be “shocking” to some visitors, state parks forest management coordinator Matt Schulz said Wednesday.
Parks workers also will target thousands of smaller, weaker trees to thin more than 1,200 acres of land to reduce the threat of forest fires — a threat aggravated by the dry winter, Schulz said.
They’ll supplement the effort with prescribed burns of neighboring meadows and grasslands.
