One more good reason why professional, regular and systematic forest management is so important, which was apparently seriously neglected in the Los Angeles area by incompetent politicians and bureaucrats.
Of course, climate change is blamed again!
"Researchers have long known that some voracious wood-eating beetles can make forest fires worse by killing trees. Now, a new study finds beetles might also fan the flames in a more subtle way: by boring tiny tunnels that increase airflow and prolong the smoldering of dead wood.
In the study ... collected 63 wood samples from forests in The Netherlands. They then used an electric drill to mimic the slender, 6 millimeter-wide tubes bored by beetle larvae, which can live in deadwood for long periods.
Wood with radial tunnels that cut across the grain were especially prone to smoldering and releasing more carbon, they report in Ecology. ... a warming climate can increase both wildfire risks and beetle populations. And more wildfires, combined with more beetles, could lead to more carbon being released during fires.
The role of beetle tunnels in wildfires had “gone sort of unnoticed until now,” ..."
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