Photo by Michael J. GallegosTribune

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Dead trees stand among the healthy in the forest along the Sandia Crest Scenic Byway. A team of forestry experts is doing a long-term assessment of the area to find ways to reduce fire danger efforts that nearby residents approve.

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Fire danger in the Sandia Mountains is as low as rangers can remember in recent summers.

But that doesn't mean they're not thinking about it.

For the past two weeks, a team of 12 forestry experts has been inspecting the forest and talking to residents and environmental groups. The goal is to come up with ways to reduce fire danger that will be most agreeable to neighbors and other stakeholders.

It isn't a speedy process. The team finishes up on June 15, and the earliest any work would begin is summer 2009, Sandia District Ranger Cid Morgan said.

But it's crucial. Over the years, overgrowth of trees and an outbreak of insects that snack on them have created the conditions for a catastrophic fire, said Chip Lewis, an environmental protection specialist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

"The bug-kill just exacerbates that situation," Lewis said.

The team is looking at the area between N.M. 14 to the east, Sandia Crest to the west, the Sandia Crest Scenic Byway to the north and I-40 to the south.

So far, the team has focused on two treatment options: prescribed burns and thinnings to reduce the risk that a fire would jump into the canopy of larger trees.

Linda Barbour, president of the East Mountain Coalition of Neighborhood and Land Owner Associations, said both options are viable and need to be explored.

"My personal feeling is that we are long past due to do something," Barbour said.

Two species are responsible for the bulk of the insect damage: the Douglas fir tussock moth and the fir engraver bark beetle.

The Douglas fir tussock moth is most harmful in its larvae stage. It feeds on the newer needles of the pine until a reddish hue is present to mark the first stage of the tree's demise.

The fir engraver bark beetle is harmful as an adult and in its larva stage. As an adult, it searches for distressed trees to lay its eggs in. The larvae born from the eggs attacks the tree by digging tunnels into it until the trunk is completely surrounded.

"We call that girdling," Cibola National Forest silvaculturist Alan Kelso said. "Girdling is equivalent to cutting the tree all the way around so that nothing can come up the roots any more."

Both species are common residents in most forests. But putting out occasional fires to protect houses in the East Mountains has made the situation worse.

"We've been suppressing fires and that has allowed for an unnatural growth of trees," Morgan said.

Because of the growth, trees are forced to compete for the same amount of moisture and become stressed. In a way, they then create a self-induced form of merciless population control: They produce a stressed-induced pheromone that attracts more bugs until the insect population becomes a hungry, breeding, hazardous workforce that leaves graveyards of tortured and haunted-looking trees in its wake.

"Trees are kind of like people," Lewis said. "If they're packed in together, they can spread the diseases easier than when they're far apart."

After the interagency team is finished with what Morgan refers to as a "scoping proposal," a survey will be needed to check for the presence of the Mexican spotted owl, an endangered species.

"We couldn't do work on the ground until July or August, 2009," Morgan said.

That leaves a few more summers when the weather could turn dry and fire danger could rise, Kelso said.

"We're talking months if not years to decide what to do here and that's the scary part," he said. "Because you don't know whether you're going to have months or years."