This news release was posted on October 1.
Aerial surveys conducted this summer by state and federal forest health specialists documented nearly 558,000 acres of active spruce beetle-caused tree mortality in Southcentral Alaska. The surveys are part of an annual program to detect forest insect and disease occurrences in Alaska forests. With the addition of this year’s data, the cumulative area impacted by spruce beetle in the region is estimated to have grown to roughly 910,000 acres since the current spruce beetle outbreak began in 2016.