But more rain in recent years and better forest management has
eased the conditions that killed off perhaps millions of trees,
and on Tuesday, county supervisors voted to end the emergency
proclamation they had renewed monthly since September 2002. "The
forest is green," Assistant Fire Chief Peter Brierty said
Wednesday. "We don't have the bark beetle die-off anymore." The
county was among the hardest-hit when drought stressed trees,
allowing the native beetles to thrive. More than 6 million acres
of California forest were threatened by bark beetle infestations
at the height of the crisis. In 2003, then-Gov. Gray Davis
proclaimed a state of emergency for Los Angeles, Riverside, San
Bernardino and San Diego counties. The Los Angeles County
emergency condition was lifted in 2011. A healthy tree can
easily fend off attacks by a few beetles by secreting resin that
encapsulates or pushes the burrowing bugs out of the bark.
However, trees in the immense San Bernardino National Forest
east of Los Angeles were too we