Sawmills and pulp mills in the US Northwest have been struggling to build log inventories for the winter season because of the unusually long fire season this year, according to the North American Wood Fiber Review.
Increased competition for small-diameter logs in the four states of the US Pacific Northwest has resulted in a higher share of logs being consumed by sawmills, thus leaving many pulp mills with low log inventory levels going into the 4Q/17, reports the North American Wood Fiber Review.
Overshadowed by BC’s unprecedented wildfire season, the US states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana also experienced a significant and disruptive wildfire year.
By early September, almost two million acres of forest and rangeland had burned in the US Northwest. Harvest operations across the four states have been hampered by restrictions on operating hours, disruptions in transportation, and loggers diverted to fighting wildfires. In Montana, several sawmills had to close operations intermittently in the 3Q/17 due to the proximity of wildfires. Full harvest operations resumed after late September rains, though whether there was sufficient time to replenish sawlog and pulplog inventories before winter conditions set in remains the key question for many log procurement managers this fall.
Unlike BC and its large provincially-owned commercial timber base, the loss of burnt timber on US federal forests has had little impact on the availability of timber with the exception being Montana, where regular timber sales from federal lands have proven crucial to selected sawmills. In general, however, the US Forest Service timber sale program provides minimal sawlog or pulplog volumes to the forest industry in Western US.
From the American Journal Of Transportation: https://www.ajot.com/news/long-winter-burn-depleting-log-inventories-in-the-u.s.-northwest