Anyone who wants to heat their homes with firewood or have a campfire in their back yard, in a forest or at a park should use only local firewood.

This is one of the most effective things to do to help keep some destructive pests out of Delaware’s forests and woodlands.

Firewood from states quarantined for wood pests may contain destructive insects and diseases.

If these are brought into Delaware, they can begin to establish populations in Delaware. If not detected, populations can quickly build and ravage trees and the local environment.

Just because a tree or log has been harvested for firewood doesn’t mean the diseases or insect larvae in the wood are dead.

Chief among the pest threats in neighboring states are the Asian longhorned beetle, emerald ash borer and sirex wood wasp.

Delaware Secretary of Agriculture Ed Kee said, “Our plant industry inspectors and our foresters are vigilant in their efforts, but we need help from the public if we are to keep these pests out of Delaware. I urge all consumers to please purchase and use only local firewood.

“Don’t bring traveling pests into Delaware with non-local firewood.”

New Jersey has the Asian longhorned beetle, (Anoplophora glabripennis), a wood-boring pest that was first introduced into the United States in 1996.

This beetle is found in hardwood trees such as elm, horse chestnut, maple, willow, ash, mountain ash, London plane, hackberry, birch, mimosa and poplar. It has also been found in the states of Illionois, New York and Massachusetts.

Once the beetle invades, the main remedy is to cut down the trees and chip the wood to destroy the pest.

To date, millions of U.S. trees have had to be destroyed in efforts to stop the Asian longhorned beetle.

The emerald ash borer (Agrilus planipennis), a native of Asia, was first introduced into North America in the 1990s. Ash trees were reported dying from this pest in Michigan in 2002.

Borer larvae interrupt the transport of nutrients and water in a tree, resulting in tree death. Many millions of ash trees in the United States have been killed or are infested by this pest.

It has traveled to other states undetected in firewood. Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland all now have counties infested with the emerald ash borer.

The sirex wood wasp (Sirex noctilio F.), a native of Europe, Asia and northern Africa, primarily attacks pines.

This wasp causes up to 80 percent mortality in some instances in the Southern Hemisphere countries that have pine plantations planted with North American pine species such as loblolly pine.

Loblolly pine is one of Delaware’s most important timber trees. Unlike native wood wasps that attack dead, weakened or dying trees, the sirex wood wasp attacks living pines.

It was first detected in the United States in 2002 and is thought to have entered the country via wood packaging materials.

The female wasp drills into the wood and inserts a toxic mucus and a fungus along with its eggs. Because the mucus prevents the tree from forming antifungal toxins, the fungus grows in the wood and dries it out.

The trees will die in a few weeks or months.

The Delaware Department of Agriculture’s Plant Industries Section has established an extensive network of traps throughout the state, hoping for early detection if one of these pests enters Delaware.

The traps are monitored on a regular basis.