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{Fire Truck rolls by}
{Music}
[Narration] In two thousand eleven, the most destructive
wildfire in Texas history roared through Bastrop State Park.
[Greg Creacy] Let me go down there and look at it, what's
your location?
[Narration] Greg Creacy was there as over ninety percent
of the park burned.
[Greg Creacy] The wildfire at Bastrop State Park was incredibly
intense.
{Fire crackles}
[Greg Creacy] It was a stand replacing fire, it started
the growth of a pine forest all over from square one.
{Crow calls}
[Greg Creacy] When the fire removed the trees, it left the
soil exposed and vulnerable to erosion.
{Footsteps in dirt}
[Greg Creacy] We we're losing sections of our road, we were
losing culverts.
{Chainsaw}
[Greg Creacy] We had to be proactive.
[Worker] You got it!
[Greg Creacy] To stabilize those soils in order to protect
a lot of our valuable infrastructure.
{Bucket dumps dirt}
[Narration] So now...
[Greg Creacy] This batch will go in the ground in December.
[Narration] Greg is working to restore the park, one seedling
at a time.
{Water drips into soil}
[Todd McClanahan] Immediately after the fire we were searching
for you know what's going to be the next steps. One of the first ones that Greg mentioned
was we have a need for a greenhouse.
{Water drips into soil}
[Greg Creacy] We transplanted them into these pots and they'll
be replanted in the high visibility areas of the park.
[Katie Raney] Ideally we want trees every ten feet or so.
[Greg Creacy] Take as much time as it takes I doesn't matter.
If you get it in the ground right, that's what matters.
[Katie Raney] There you go!
[Greg Creacy] We are planting pine seedlings in the heavily
burned areas that do not have natural pine regeneration.
[Volunteer] I love tree planting!
[Greg Creacy] The first planting season we planted about
two hundred and twenty five thousand pine seedlings...
[Volunteer] Yeah!!
{Dirt broken up}
[Greg Creacy] ...and we anticipate to have over two million
seedlings in the ground within five years.
{Leaves scraped away}
{Houston toad calls}
[Todd McClanahan] Greg wears a variety of different hats in
his role.
{Houston toad calls}
[Todd McClanahan] He is our go to person for the endangered
Houston Toad.
{Water seeps into cooler}
[Narration] One of the efforts that seems to be paying
off for the Houston toad is an egg collection campaign.
[Greg Creacy] We harvest a large portion of Houston Toad
egg strands that we find in the water and we raise those in captivity to either tadpole
stage or small toadlet stage.
{Water poured on tadpoles}
[Greg Creacy] And then we release them in the same area
where they were harvested.
{Houston Toad calls}
[Greg Creacy] That way we are bypassing that part of the
life cycle that has a very high mortality rate.
{Houston Toad calls}
{Music}
[Todd McClanahan] Over the next few decades when people come
and drive through this area and see the forest is recovering.
[Greg Creacy] Seedlings look nice and healthy.
{Two way crackles}
[Todd McClanahan] A lot of that will be because of the good
decisions that Greg Creacy has made.
{Water poured on seedlings}
[Todd McClanahan] He is an absolute steward for this ecosystem
and for Parks and Wildlife.
{Music fades}