Bastrop County loses 1.5 million trees to wildfire

  

BASTROP, TX -- Wildfires that killed two and destroyed more than 1,500 homes also brought the loss of nearly 1.5 million trees.

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The Texas Forest Service says Thursday that more than 16,200 acres of pine and mixed pine-deciduous forests burned in the Bastrop County wildfires last month.

Trees killed and those still alive but expected to die equal about 850,000 green tons of timber, or 24 million cubic feet. That's worth more than $14 million as they stood in the forest.

The forest service assessed the damage to get a handle on the volume of damaged and destroyed timber to be removed and possibly utilized.

Only 22 percent of trees 5 inches in diameter and larger, or about seven million cubic feet, were likely to survive, according to the assessment.

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