Colorado Governor Jared Polis’ and Department of Natural Resources’ recent claim that the latest natural wave of native mountain pine beetle in Front Range forests will increase wildfire threats to communities and forests has long been disproven by the consensus of peer-reviewed—and even government agency—science.

This includes conclusive studies from CU Boulder and Colorado State University scientists who emerged as some of the world’s leading experts on the interplay between beetles, forests, and wildfire after Colorado’s last mountain pine beetle wave peaked in 2010.

Yet still, on top of $40 million in tax dollars spent primarily on ineffective “fuel reduction” logging from 2021-2025 by Department of Natural Resource’s COSWAP (Colorado Strategic Wildfire Action Program) during a budget shortfall, Polis wants to expand forest felling beyond the hundreds of thousands of acres already proposed across the state by offering even more “tax incentives to expand the use of beetle-kill timber.”

Even Jefferson County Open Space, which has been carrying out the most aggressive “fuel reduction” logging we’ve ever seen on Front Range public lands, admits “Historical records going back for 300 years show [mountain pine beetle] outbreaks are known in our region to occur every 8-20 years.”

Plus, a 2020 study authored by a U.S. Forest Service research entomologist “observed only 21% of the ponderosa pine basal area killed by MPB [mountain pine beetle] in the study area.”

Yet nowhere in the government announcements—or media reporting—was a single mention of the consensus scientific evidence debunking the assertion that beetle-killed trees will threaten communities or increase the likelihood or spread of wildfire.

To the contrary, the science concludes either no uptick or even a DECREASE in the chance of fire following a wave of mountain pine beetles (aside from a brief one to four-year window as needles die and before they are shed).

Studies also find “thinning” to be ineffective at stopping large waves of beetles, with such tree removal (before, during, or after) potentially prolonging insect activity and killing more trees than in unthinned stands that experienced beetles.

First, here’s the conclusion of a 2015 study co-authored by four of the world’s leading experts from CU Boulder, Sarah Hart, Tania Schoennagel, Thomas Veblen, and Teresa Chapman: “Contrary to the expectation that an MPB [mountain pine beetle] outbreak increases fire risk, spatial overlay analysis shows no effect of outbreaks on subsequent area burned during years of extreme burning across the West. These results refute the assumption that increased bark beetle activity has increased area burned.”

A 2025 study co-authored by Brian Buma from Boulder (who also authored a 2022 study for City and County of Boulder and Jefferson County finding “fuel reduction” to be ineffective at reducing fire severity) concluded that “In general, research suggests that large patches of beetle killed trees are generally less flammable at broad scales, not more so.”

Even the US Forest Service—which carries out the federal timber sale program and routes billions in taxpayer dollars towards largely ineffective and often counterproductive “fuel reduction” logging—admits in its own 2018 study: “A spatial analysis of 466 fires (all but one less than an acre) from 1980 to 2005 did not find a relationship between MPB-caused [mountain pine beetle] mortality and subsequent fires. Kulakowski and Jarvis (2011) examined burned and unburned lodgepole pine stands and indicated that beetle-caused mortality did not increase fire probability. Observed fires were driven by climatic factors that foster dry conditions, which is consistent with previous studies.”

And, once again, the aggressive “forest management” agency that is Jefferson County Open Space acknowledges that, “Standing dead trees are no more likely to catch fire than standing green.”

If the science proves that forests experiencing mountain pine beetles—which U.S. Forest Service found killed on average only 21 percent of ponderosa pines impacted—do not increase the chance of fire, besides timber production or more money to keep funding government agency budgets, what is the purpose of Polis’ routing even more taxpayer dollars to fell forests?

The Department of Natural Resources press release insists that “State officials have emphasized that early action is essential to reducing long-term fire risk.”

Even dismissing all the science showing mountain pine beetle doesn’t increase the likelihood of wildfire, and ignoring the fact that dead trees are essential components of forest ecosystems, does “thinning” actually save more trees in the long run?

This 2014 study published in a peer-reviewed journal “found higher numbers of mature living trees remained in control stands of ponderosa pine than in thinned stands post-mountain pine beetle outbreak…once the beetles have run their course, more residual living trees (100) actually remain in the control plot than in the thinned plot (90) and, in fact, humans have contributed more to tree mortality than have the beetles.”

A 2013 study co-authored by Barry Noon, Professor in the Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology at Colorado State University, found that “Preemptive thinning may reduce susceptibility to small outbreaks but is unlikely to reduce susceptibility to large, landscape-scale epidemics.” As is directly relevant to the current wave in the Front Range, “if the stand was in the path of an ongoing mountain pine beetle epidemic, spacing and density of trees had little effect.”

Even more alarming, the CSU study found that not only does such “thinning” create obvious but usually ignored “long-term ecological costs,” tree removal “has the potential to inadvertently lead to heightened insect activity” in which “outbreaks could be prolonged.”

Yet our elected officials such as Governor Polis and government agencies such as Colorado State Forest Service continue to spread scientifically debunked falsehoods or partial truths to the public, while our media uncritically reports it all as fact while ignoring, censoring, blacklisting, or even defaming leading expert scientists and members of the conservation community.