How a scientist’s bold strategy for replanting trees after a wildfire could help save Colorado’s forests

In The NOCO

The Hayman Fire burned through a huge swath of forest southwest of Denver in 2002. It left behind a massive burn scar. Workers quickly replanted thousands of trees to reestablish the forest.

But more than two decades later, large areas of the Hayman burn scar still resemble a moonscape, with some scraggly young trees here and there.

Burn scars that take decades to heal are becoming a fact of life throughout the West. It’s partly due to climate change, which is shifting which types of trees will grow naturally in mountain forests.

Camille Stevens-Rumann – assistant director of the Colorado Forest Restoration Insitute at Colorado State University – studies reforestation efforts after a wildfire. In a recent Scripps News story, Stevens-Rumann argues it’s time for a new approach to how we replant forests after wildfires.

She spoke with Erin O’Toole last November. We’re listening back to that conversation about what she thinks Colorado’s forests should look like in the future – and why trees that have historically thrived in Colorado’s mountains don’t grow back quickly after a wildfire.
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Host and Producer: Erin O'Toole
Producer: Ariel Lavery
Executive Producer: Brad Turner
Theme music by Robbie Reverb
Additional music by Blue Dot Sessions
In The NoCo is a production of KUNC News and Community Radio for Northern Colorado.