NEARLY 1.5 MILLION TREES EXPECTED TO DIE AFTER WILDFIRE RAVAGES BASTROP COUNTY
Oct. 6, 2011 — BASTROP, Texas — Once known for its vast fields of stately pines, Bastrop County could lose 1.5 million trees as a result of deadly wildfire that ravaged the community last month.
The Bastrop County Complex — a 34,000-acre inferno deemed the most destructive wildfire in state history — ignited over Labor Day weekend, forcing thousands of evacuations, destroying more than 1,500 homes and killing two people.
The natural landscape also took a significant hit. More than 16,200 acres of pine and mixed-pine deciduous forests full of large, mature trees were charred during the fire, according to a damage assessment recently completed by Texas Forest Service.
“We hope this assessment will give Bastrop a rough idea of what they’re dealing with so they can plan and move forward with their recovery,” said Burl Carraway, Sustainable Forestry Department Head at Texas Forest Service. “The fire area includes almost half of the contiguous Lost Pines ecosystem.”
Texas Forest Service conducted the damage assessment to better determine the total volume of damaged and destroyed timber that would need to be removed — and possibly utilized.
Before the massive wildfire, the forests in the fire perimeter contained more than 31 million cubic feet of live trees. After the fire, just 7 million cubic feet — or about 22 percent of total volume — were considered likely to survive, according to the timber damage assessment.
The assessment indicates that 12 million cubic feet of trees — or about 38 percent of the total volume — were killed by the fire. Another 13 million cubic feet — or about 40 percent of total volume — were considered to be still alive, but likely to die soon.
When you combine the trees that are dead and likely to die, the total volume of trees lost surpasses 24 million cubic feet, which is equal to about 850,000 green tons of timber.
According to East Texas timber markets, those trees would have been worth $14 million as they stood in the forest — a figure also known as stumpage value.
Contacts:
Chris Edgar, Forest Resource Analyst
Burl Carraway, Sustainable Forestry Department Head
Writer:
Holly Huffman, Communications Specialist