Ecological security is an important component of national security. The ecological situation in some areas has reached a point of extreme gravity. Air pollution, water pollution, soil pollution, and other environmental problems have garnered increasing attention of the government and citizens. The people in these places are eager to improve the ecological environment. As an important part of the terrestrial ecosystem, forests safeguard the ecology and provide resources for the survival and development of human society; thus, forests play an important role in the national ecological security. Based on the interaction among the forest ecosystem, nature, and human society, an evaluation index system of the provincial ecological security was established from four aspects, such as the status of forest resources, geo-climatic conditions, socio-economic pressure, the level of forest resource management practices and response to pressure. Accordingly, the annual forest ecological security situation (2004-2014) of Guizhou Province, Hubei Province, Zhejiang Province, Jilin Province and Qinghai Province was evaluated based on the forest ecological security index model. The results indicated that the status of forest resources was the major factor among the four indices. The overall situation of the forest ecological security in the five provinces listed above tended to improve over the study period. However, significant differences were observed among them. The status of the forest ecological security in Jilin Province was superior to that of the other provinces, while Qinghai exhibited significantly lower values of the Forest Ecological Security Index (FESI). In the process of economic development, afforestation, protection of existing forests, especially the natural forest, should be strengthened to maintain the forest ecological security.