An aerial view of Southern pine beetle infestations scattered through the forest near Rock Creek Baptist Church, about three miles north of Double Springs, on Tuesday, Aug. 20. (Photo by Mike Henshaw, Winston County Natural Resources Council)
WINSTON COUNTY - The Alabama Forestry Commission announced last week that Southern pine beetle infestations have reached "epidemic" levels in the state and identified Winston County and the Bankhead National Forest among the worst hit areas.
The August 22, AFC press release said the organization had identified nearly 5,000 SPB spots, "with an average mortality of 191 pine trees per spot," across Alabama as of that date, but on Tuesday, Aug. 27, Acting Bankhead District Ranger Tyler Fish said there are over 1,000 individual spots in the Bankhead alone.
While the spots vary widely in size, ranging "from a small cluster of trees to over 100 acres," together, they cover an estimated 4,500 acres of Forest Service land in the Bankhead, Fish said.
In contrast, last summer during AFC's aerial surveys, only 14 spots were detected in Bankhead, he said.
"When we got the flight data, we'd already noticed that they'd been moving, so they were pretty active then," Fish continued. "Over the winter, they slow down because of changes in weather patterns, climate, all that."
Then summer arrived, and with it, conditions that have been bad for trees and ideal for SPB.
"For the remainder of the summer, the number of SPB spots, as well as the number of trees affected per spot, are expected to increase," according to the AFC release.
"We have a spot right out on the corner (of the Bankhead District Ranger Office parking lot in Double Springs) (and) one on the other corner. All these are on private land. It's not just a Forest Service issue. It's a statewide issue. We're getting hit especially hard to the west of the Bankhead, then also north in the Tennessee Valley."
See complete story in the Northwest Alabamian.
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