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Killed by the mountain pine beetle and its symbiotic blue fungus infection, dead lodgepole pine stand out like grey ghosts among living trees in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest along the Flint Creek Range September 13, 2019 near Deer Lodge, Montana. According to the 2017 Montana Climate Assessment, the annual average temperatures in the state has increased 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit since 1950 and is projected to increase by approximately 3.0 to 7.0 degrees by midcentury. As climate change makes summers hotter and drier in the Northern Rockies, forests are threatened with increasing wildfire activity, deadly pathogens and insect infestations, including the mountain pine beetle outbreak. Although the number of new trees infested each year by the pine beetle has reduced since the height of the outbreak around 2012, the insects have killed more than six million acres of forest across Montana since 2000. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
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