CHULUOTA, Fla. — One year after a huge wildfire burned through Central Florida’s Girl Scouts camp, much of it remains closed.

The wildfire on April 8, 2017 burned more than half of Camp Mah-Kah-Wee near Chuluota.

Long after the fire was put out, Maryann Barry is still assessing damage and waiting for it to be cleaned up.

Girl scouts are able to use part of the camp that was spared, but much of it is still too dangerous to even walk around in.

“To look at this a year later is devastating. We had hoped to do more,” said Barry, CEO of Girl Scouts Citrus Council, which serves six Central Florida counties.

Some plants, like palmettos, have grown back in areas charred by the fire. But many trees that remain standing are in danger of falling because they were burned so severely. Until those trees are chopped down, they make much of the camp too dangerous to use.

“This is a resource, not just for girl scouts but for our community, that right now is just in this holding pattern while we try to assemble the funds and resources that we need,” Barry said.

Barry said she’s still waiting to see how much money she will get from insurance claims. She expects the girl scouts will be stuck paying about $5 million to get the entire camp re-opened — that’s nearly the entire amount they make off selling cookies, which is most of their yearly budget.

Despite the bleak outlook financially, Barry remains hopeful.

“This will turn into an opportunity, from a tragedy, to be able to do more of that to benefit all of the children and families,” Barry said.

The Seminole County Board of County Commissioners expressed their concerns about the plight of the camp at a recent meeting. 

Commissioner John Horan says while the county doesn’t have a lot of money available to give to Girl Scouts, he says it’s possible the county could have county crews help chop down some of the burnt trees.

Horan says the county could also offer up some of the county’s natural lands to the Girls Scouts to use until this camp is fully restored.