WASILLA — Spruce beetles are only a quarter-inch long but in 2018, these tiny bugs took a huge bite out of Mat-Su Valley forests, killing about 506,000 acres of trees, according to data from the U.S. Forest Service website. “We’re currently in a spruce beetle outbreak in Southcentral Alaska,” Jason Moan, Forest Health Program Manager for the Alaska Division of Forestry, said. True to their name, these beetles’ primary victims were spruce trees. Their host of choice is white spruce, the hardest hit in recent years, leaving miles of red, dead trees stripped of their pines.  According to the U.S. Forest Service, nearly 558,000 acres of trees were decimated across Southcentral, primarily affecting the Mat-Su Valley and the northwestern Kenai Peninsula (48,000 acres). The last major spruce beetle outbreak ended around 1997, closing the final chapter of the notorious “90’s Spruce Beetle Epidemic,” that killed several million acres of trees.