Climate Central: In 2012, when the High Park Fire tore through a northern Colorado forest replete with dead trees left in the wake of a mountain pine beetle infestation, blame for the fire's spread across 87,000 acres was often placed primarily on the beetles.
The High Park Fire, which killed one person and destroyed 259 homes, and the attention to the beetles in its wake were part of the impetus for a new University of Colorado study showing that bark beetle infestations and the dead trees they leave behind have...