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鈥檚 partly due to climate change, which is shifting which types of trees will grow naturally in mountain forests.
鈥� assistant director of the at Colorado State University 鈥� studies reforestation efforts after a wildfire. In a recent , Stevens-Rumann argues it鈥檚 time for a new approach to how we replant forests after wildfires.
She spoke with Erin O鈥橳oole last November. Today, we鈥檙e listening back to that conversation about what she thinks Colorado鈥檚 forests should look like in the future 鈥� and why trees that have historically thrived in Colorado鈥檚 mountains don鈥檛 grow back quickly after a wildfire.
