Bark beetles pose greater fire danger in fourth year of California drought

[Wrightwood]

[Wrightwood]

Risk from Bark Beetles
Bark Beetles are killing millions of trees in California. Dead trees become fuel for wildfire.

http://www.readyforwildfire.org/Bark_Beetles_Risk

[Mrs. Hillbilly]

A friend of ours had a standing dead tree close to his power lines.  Edison took down the tree and was it was treated for the bark beetle.  He offered us the wood.  As I started splitting up the rounds I began to notice several of these guys burrowed in the tree!



I have never seen these things in our trees before.  I looked them up on Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirex_woodwasp

They are called Sirex Woodwasp and are not a good thing for our forest.  Does anybody have more info on these things.  The rounds of wood I am splitting have been at my house since July.  These things are still alive burrowed in the wood. I ended up killing most of them thinking they could sting me.  Apparently they do not sting. A couple did fly away. 

[Mrs. Hillbilly]

I found a picture of the larva.  These I have seen many times throughout the years. I just had never seen them in their wasp form.

[Nolena]

Hmmmm...
The most recent large Jeffrey Pine to topple over (recently) along the Village Trail had been showing growths of fungus for quite some time.
The stump is still there, a little east of Victorville Street.
I wonder if this could have been the problem.