“Everyone’s watching closely,”: Council of Forest Industries on BC wildfires

BC’s lumber industry is trying to clear its latest hurdle – the 2021 wildfire season.

Canfor announced its curtailing 115 million board feet of production capacity at its Canadian sawmills during the third quarter of this year.

Alexa Young with the Council of Forest Industries told Vista Radio more companies are keeping close tabs on the supply chain issues and a transportation backlog in Western Canada.

“I think everyone is watching really closely and rail service is critical in getting our product to market. Certainly, if those goes on for a sustained period of time there could be an impact on operations.”

“The supply chain, the trains, roads, and the trucking are the lifeblood of the industry. When there is a disruption like wildfires there is certainly a big trickle effect and that is what we are seeing now.”

She adds companies are working closely with workers and contractors to minimize those impacts.

Young noted lumber prices continue to resemble more of a roller coaster. Two-by-four Western SPF prices are sitting at $490 per million board feet as of yesterday (Thursday), which is down from the extreme highs witnessed in the spring where prices resembled $1600 per million board feet.

“There are a lot of reasons for that. You’ll recall during the pandemic we saw an extraordinary demand for lumber as people were looking to remodel their homes and create a new deck. At the same time, you had this huge demographic in the US looking at entering the housing market at a time of historic lows in terms of supply, which really drove prices up,” added Young.

“Now, we are seeing a bit of a recalibration (in prices) as people have different priorities. They are not spending time remodelling and remaking they are spending time at restaurants and travelling so that has led to a recalibration in prices.”