Arizona Daily Sun

Arizona Daily Sun The good news is that precipitation in northern Arizona this winter may be just enough to give many relatively healthy ponderosa pines a fighting chance against fatal bark beetle attacks, forestry experts say.

The bad news is that it takes "several years" of normal rainfall before drought-stressed pines can fully recover and produce beetle-fighting pitch, they add.

But the really bad news is the forecast of dead and dying trees for 2003 may skyrocket and current forest conditions promise a bark beetle outbreak in just a few weeks at least as bad as last year's, when 2 million trees in Arizona were killed.

"The traditional date for them to start flying is April 1 and that's coming up pretty soon," said Tom DeGomez, of the University of Arizona Cooperative Extension Service in Flagstaff.