BATON ROUGE - Beetles are feasting on pine trees that died from the drought last summer in Louisiana. Now those trees are becoming a danger.

The source of the trouble is a bark beetle called the Ips engraver beetle.

With strong weather like tornados and hurricanes possible, falling tree limbs are always a worry in Louisiana. Now weather may not even need to be bad for these trees to fall down.

Last year's drought was the consequence of one of the hottest and driest summers on record. This caused a lot of pine trees to be affected by the drought. The Ips engraver beetle has been targeting these trees.

"They're in a lot higher numbers right now. They were feeding off a lot of the trees that died in the woods. They're starting to be so prevalent that you know you're starting to see them pop up in the residential areas on ornamental trees in the landscape." Beau Mutrie of the Louisiana Nursery said.

The Louisiana Nursery says a good way to tell if your tree is dead and possibly has these beetles, is to look at the color of the tree's needles.

"Well, right now the Tell-Tale sign would be brown needles. And that's kind of unfortunately a sign that the infection, or the infestation has been too far gone and you should be looking at ways to remove that tree." Mutrie said.

If the pine needles are still green, buying some insecticide is a good way to deal with the beetles.
"So right now the chemicals you'll see the most often are Bifenthrin. That is effective at killing the beetles. Is it effective, once the infestation has happened? No. That's why I suggest looking into options to removing the tree or trimming the branches." Mutrie said.

Another way you can tell if you have an Ips Engraver infestation is to check for any h-shaped patterns carved in the tree.

State officials have said they know of at least two cases this year of dead pine trees falling and killing people.