BUNA - Bill Carlsen gingerly navigates his 127-acre East Texas tree farm, stepping over fallen massive pines, setting aside strewn branches and finally pausing to assess the wreckage.

"I still can't believe it," Carlsen said, looking out over a wide expanse of trees that were uprooted or left dramatically bent by Hurricane Rita's winds this fall. "When you look at this, it makes it tough, especially when you're not making a little bit of money to pay for it."

The scent of fresh-cut pine has lost its appeal for many tree farmers in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama since hurricanes Rita and Katrina damaged about 5.7 million acres of timber — enough to produce nearly 900,000 single-family homes.

The acreage represents 20 percent of the private, state and federal forestland in those states and 1 percent of the nation's forests.

Katrina smashed into the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29, and Rita roared ashore Sept. 24. Since then, timberland owners have scrambled to salvage their downed lumber, selling much of it prematurely — in some cases for less than half what they normally would make.

"It's a fire sale," said Ralph Day, an East Texas forestry consultant who has spent months assessing damage in an area of the state known for its thick, piney woods. "It's also a race against time before the wood gets stained and isn't worth anything. The clock is ticking."

The United States Department of Agriculture and Texas Forest Service at Texas A&M University peg the four states' timber losses at nearly $6 billion. In East Texas, the damage was primarily from Rita.

The storm damaged as much timber in seven counties as 43 Texas counties produce in an entire year, said Ron Hufford, executive vice president for the Texas Forestry Association.

Unlike agricultural crops, timber is not insured or eligible for special assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The damage hurts the nation's $230 billion-a-year timber industry, from the corporations with massive forest tracts to the single landowner, at a time when lumber is needed to rebuild hurricane-ravaged communities.

Carlsen is among the lucky ones. Work to salvage timber on his farm about 100 miles northeast of Houston got under way in late October when a team of loggers went to work putting in as many hours as daylight would permit.

As the job nears completion, logger Glen Brown's crew will have cleared up to 4,500 tons of timber that will become either construction lumber or pulp. Each day about 10 truckloads carrying up to 30 tons of lumber leave for area mills.