The continuing Texas drought has taken an enormous and growing
toll on trees, killing as many as half a billion – 10 percent of
the state’s 4.9 billion trees – this year alone, the Texas
Forest Service estimates. That calculation did not include trees
claimed by this year’s deadly and extensive wildfires, even if
they were drought-related, Burl Carraway, who heads the agency’s
Sustainable Forestry Department, told Texas Climate News.
(Previously, the Forest Service estimated that about 1.5 million
trees were lost on 34,000 charred acres in the Bastrop County
fire, most destructive in Texas history. In another damage
assessment, the agency said more than 2,000 fires in East Texas
had charred more than 200,000 acres. Texas has about 63 million
acres of forestlands.) The estimate that up to half a billion
trees have been lost to drought in 2011 was issued Monday by the
Forest Service. It was based on statistics tabulated by agency
foresters after they canvassed local forestry professionals in
their regions, deve