The big news last week was the announcement by Canfor that it will be closing its Plateau mill in Vanderhoof and its Fort St. John operation, which would eliminate 500 jobs and remove 670 million board feet of annual production capacity. The company blamed the closures on not accessing economically viable timber, as well as continuing financial losses and weak lumber markets, but said the final blow was the big increase in U.S. Tariffs.
Some of the Government help with purchasing commercial thinning equipment for managing wildfires as described in an article by David Elstone in the Aug 2024 issue of the Logging and Sawmilling Journal. In his article titled Are we willing to change in the face of wildfire? he gives the results of a recent survey of British Columbians (75 per cent of the respondents) follow the news about wildfires closely; in other words, it is a top-of-mind subject; 35 per cent reported that wildfires have already had a large impact on their lives with 74 per cent having experienced smoke from wildfires even for those in urban centres like Vancouver.
The author provides some information from a recent study from the USDA Forest Service where literature from over 40 studies and concluded “proactive ecological forest management can change how fires behave and reduce wildfire severity. Some practices included reducing surface and ladder fuels and tree density through thinning, coupled with prescribed burning or pile burning.”
Processing facilities are critical for using products from commercial thinning and chipping operations which helps cover some of the field costs. The following factors were also critical for a smooth transition. “Can contractors use their current fleet of equipment, or will they need more specialized equipment? What works best and in what conditions – tracked or wheeled machines? Do we need smaller cutting and processing heads? Does size of machine matter – regular versus new micro-equipment? Do we have sufficiently trained professionals to prescribe the work? Do we have enough skilled machine operators, particularly if there is a shift to wheeled machines? “
While B.C. has budgeted $60 million over three years to the Forest Enhancement Society of BC (FESBC), many people estimate that it will take billions to create a meaningful impact across the landscape and it makes more sense to shift money from suppressing wildfires to more proactive measures like those described above.
While the provincial budget has yet to match the amount of work needed, the B.C. government is starting to think about the future in terms of equipment. “The government just recently launched WREST—the Wildfire Reduction Equipment Support Trust with $5.25 million to encourage the purchase of specified equipment for the purposes as outlined in this article. WREST will provide reimbursement for the lesser of 10 per cent of the total cost or $100,000—refer to wrestrust.ca for more details.”
With Scandinavian countries having extensive experience in commercial thinning no doubt contractors will be looking at some of the latest offshore equipment that is available. For example another article in the latest Logging and Sawmilling Journal looks at some Swedish forest thinning equipment that is working well in Quebec.
