can be found via this story from the local paper:

http://www.dailycamera.com/boulder-county-news/ci_21155826

I agree about the clear cuts. There has been work done in Colorado to widen the cuts along power lines through the beetle kill areas. These vistos along the powerlines will hopefully provide fire breaks as well as to keep the dead trees from falling on the powerlines and starting fires in the first place.

I'm trying to find the time to pull together references for the long story of forest management in the Rampart Range, where the recent Waldo Canyon fire destroyed so many homes. (I toured the neighborhood recently, and it was pretty amazing.) The story ranges from evidence for a huge fire, started by the Native Americans, 50 years prior to Zebulon Pike's expedition (1806), the clearcut logging of the 1890's, the public outcry over the logging in the early 1900's, the formation of the National Forests, the replanting of the forest as a depression era work program, and the decades of no real forest management leading to the Waldo Canyon Fire.

Looking at how the Waldo Canyon Fire spread, it is evident that the two rock quarries (one reclaimed, the other operating) that sit on the western margin of Colorado Springs acted as two big fire breaks. These two quarries (mining limestone) that have long been labeled the "scars on the mountain" saved Colorado Springs from a bigger conflagration.