Kat, I've been watching the news of that fire.

The mountain pine bark beetles have killed forests and residential pine trees here in Montana, too. Some mature trees in my neighbor's yard had to be cut down because they had the beetle.

Wildlife managers say the bears are unusually thin this time of year, hungry because one of their favorite foods is pine nuts, and the trees have been killed by the beetles. That is one of the reasons we had bear attacks so much lately and so many bears coming into town. They are hungry and at this time of the year, they should be fat and ready to hibernate.

The city encouraged people in town and the university campus to put pheromone packets on the north side of pine tree trunks. We did that last year in our neighborhood, but it was too late for some of the trees.

Alice