In this country, too. In eastern Germany it is drier, there are more and more long-lasting fires in the spruce monoculture farms (I don't want to call these areas forest), in eastern Germany it is drier and hotter than in the other parts of the country. Greens, however, always enforce to leave dead wood lying, because this is "natural" and forms a primeval forest. They also rely on experiences in Bavaria, where the bark beetle led to a huge forest dieback in the 80s, but the forest was left to regenerate on its own, which it did, and now a more species-rich forest exists on these areas than before. A complete success.
But at that time it was not so hot and not so dry, the danger of forest fires was much lower.
Today, the same recipe is a manual for literally provoking fires and helping them spread faster.
My poor squirrels. The fir and especially the spruce forests are doomed to extinction in Germany, which is a catastrophe for the European red squirrel, because cones are an indispensable part of its food supply. Newly planeted firs and cone-producing trees need 40, 60, 80 years before they are so big that the build cones. As the forests in Germany are replaced, the red squirrel in its natural habitat and outside urban areas will disappear from Germany in the next decades, from most if not all of Central Europe. The population will retreat further and further to the northeast, at least according to current climate data. The populations will only remain in the cities - and then only if humans help. That's why I maintain a large feeding station in our neighborhood, and it's not cheap, it costs me several hundred euros a year.
