MORE COMPLETE THINNINGS NEEDED.

The article states that two recent studies by the U.S. Forest Service on the effects of major wildfires showed that forests that were thinned but not treated with prescribed burning suffered much greater tree mortality than forests that were thinned and prescribe-burned or forests that were not treated at all. The studies focused on the 2002 Biscuit fire in Oregon and the 2002 Hayman fire in Colorado. They showed that in the Biscuit fire, 80 to 100 percent of the trees died in forests that had only been thinned, while 5 percent of the trees died in forests that had been thinned and prescribe-burned. In the Hayman fire, 90 percent of the trees died in a forest that had only been thinned, while 50 percent of the trees died in an untreated or natural forest.