How Much Wood Would a Woodchuck Chuck?

I searched online to see how many needles per fascicle that Austrian Black Pine (Pinus nigra) and Ponderosa Pine (Pinus ponderosa) have, to take an inventory of how many of each we have in our nursery area.  In this link about P. ponderosa, I was interested to read about the species's use in nuclear testing.

The site says, "...pines were cut down ... and transported ... where they were planted into the ground and exposed to a nuclear blast to see what the blast wave would do to a forest. The trees were partially burned and blown over."

Well, duh.  Let's see if a dried out tree will catch fire.  Let's see if a tree separated from its roots will fall down.  Now let's extrapolate this observation to a living forest.  Who thought up that experiment?