BROOKHAVEN, Mississippi — Extreme drought conditions in Mississippi killed approximately 12.5 million trees and over 80,000 acres affected across the state. The Mississippi Forestry Commission released a preliminary survey on pine mortality Thursday.  The United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service helped MFC conduct the survey through the Southern Research Station looking at an area of 13,010,098 acres, 2,500,000 acres were made up of pine trees. It is important to note the drought caused stress on the trees and it is likely beetles such as the Southern Pine beetle and Ips beetle attacked stressed trees and killed them. …Garron Hicks, Mississippi Forestry Commission Forest Health Commissioner said the acreage impacted by the drought is growing little by little each day. It is likely there will be more updates to the survey over the next year.