Susan Yurkovich
Recent mill closures have been “gut-wrenching” as the forestry industry faces tough market conditions, the chief executive of Canfor said. The Vancouver-based company announced it’s permanently closing its Fox Creek sawmill in Alberta because there is not enough fibre to sustain it long-term. US tariffs and weak markets have further eroded its viability, it said. …“Our goal is to ensure these operations can run fully and successfully, while generating jobs and supporting communities,” Yurkovich said. …Meanwhile, West Fraser Timber is continuing to assess the impact of the Trump administration’s latest tariff volley. The US plan to impose a 50% tariff onCanadian goods includes several varieties of plywood, paper and other wood-derived products. …West Fraser said its medium-density fibreboard is not directly subject to tariffs.” Year-to-date, 3% of its plywood and 20% of its laminated veneer lumber would have been affected by the latest tariffs, had they been in place during that time.
Burnaby-headquartered Interfor Corp., one of B.C.’s long-standing lumber giants, has told its employees that it will be moving most of its executive and back-office work to an office in the United States. The company didn’t indicate whether it would officially move its headquarters to the office in Georgia that Interfor established in 2014… Interfor did not respond to Postmedia requests for comment. News of the move came as a surprise to the union that represents about 250 Interfor’s workers at two of its three B.C. mills, as well as mills in Ontario. “I read it this morning while vacation with my morning coffee,” said Jeff Bromley, wood council chair for the United Steelworkers. “I understand that they’ve built and purchased a number of operations in the States over the last 20 years,” Bromley added. “But at the end of the day, it’s still a kick in the gut.” …Now he is concerned other companies might follow suit.
Canadian lumber giant Interfor Corp., which blamed U.S. tariffs on softwood lumber when it idled two Northern Ontario sawmills indefinitely in April, has told employees it plans to shift its corporate and functional support operations from the company’s current headquarters in Burnaby, B.C., to an office in Georgia. In a memo sent to employees earlier this month and viewed by the Financial Post, chief executive Ian Fillinger said the Peachtree City office, outside Atlanta, will be established as Interfor’s “primary hub for corporate and functional support.” The July 9 memo says “a continued West Coast presence” will be maintained as part of a multi-year operational strategy and that the company hopes to handle the gradual shift to a U.S. corporate support hub largely through attrition and future hiring decisions. …According to Fillinger the changes would position the company’s support functions closer to where the business operates and strengthen how mills and customers are served….
COWICHAN BAY, BC — Western Forest Products has announced the extension of their Cowichan Bay Sawmill curtailment until the fall. The move leaves 54 employees without work, said Brian Butler, president of United Steelworkers Local 1-1937. The Cowichan Bay workers join the 120 workers from the Chemainus Sawmill, who have been curtailed indefinitely since June 2025. “Beyond what WFP has advised about the Cowichan Bay Sawmill curtailment lasting through September, we have no information beyond that,” Butler noted. …“It remains a very difficult period of time for our members in these operations,” Butler said. …WFP spokesperson Kelly Marion said the Cowichan Bay mill closure is “in response to persistently weak market conditions.” She added that the company is continuing “to work to mitigate the impact on employees by providing work opportunities at our other operations where possible.”
PITTSBURGH – United Steelworkers (USW) International President Roxanne Brown and IAM Union (International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers) International President Brian Bryant sent a letter to United States Trade Representative (USTR) Jamieson Greer, urging him to reconsider tariffs on Canadian goods and instead employ a trade policy built on the long history and unique relationship the two nations share. “While it’s true that workers and their communities have suffered greatly from decades of so-called free trade, Canada has never been the problem,” said Brown. “Our two nations share a deep collaboration built on decades of economic integration as well as intelligence and defense cooperation. Rather than imposing further tariffs … we should work together with our Canadian allies to limit illegal trade practices and advance our shared prosperity.” “…we urge the administration to work with the Canadian government to preserve the integrated manufacturing relationship that supports workers on both sides of the border,” said Bryant.
President Trump has opened a new front in the US-Canada trade war. …But not on softwood lumber. Like other goods already subject to Section 232 tariffs, softwood got a pass. That exemption is more revealing than the tariffs themselves — and it points toward a deal that has eluded both countries for four decades. The US imports about a third of the lumber it consumes, and Canada supplies roughly four-fifths of those imports. …American mills are already running at roughly two-thirds of capacity, and output has been flat for years — tariff protection has not built the industry it was meant to build. …Four decades of duties changed the supplier, not the dependence. …The 2006 Softwood Lumber Agreement supplies the model: export charges or volume restraints that stabilize trade without either government surrendering its legal position. A modern version should go further… creating faster dispute resolution before disagreements spiral into another decade of litigation.
The purely economic decision by Finch Paper in Glens Falls, now part of a global company, to stop purchasing Adirondack regional trees for its pulp to paper operation and to instead acquire its pulp from far beyond New York’s borders is serious – and deserves the attention it’s getting from forest product industries, harvesters, truckers, suppliers, and landowners elsewhere. …While residents will no longer have to breathe the sulfide smell from the mill, there are broadly negative effects further north. Environmental interests also have a big stake in this matter. If a large, regional, formerly reliable market for low-grade… pulp trees is suddenly eliminated, then the reduced income and opportunities for future management threatens the quality, diversity, and sustainability of Adirondack forests. It also threatens the loss of Adirondack forest-related employment up and down the supply chain, as well as forest fragmentation and loss of wildlife habitats due to sale, subdivision, and subsequent development. 
Sidney S. Frissell died in Hamilton, MT, on March 13, 2026. He was a Forestry professor and Dean at the University of Montana, woodsman and an avid birder, watercolor painter of birds in their natural habitats, and lifelong Ham radio operator. …Sid earned a Forestry degree at the University of Minnesota and went to work for the US Forest Service in Randall, Washington. Within a year he returned to graduate studies at Minnesota, earning a Master’s degree and then pursuing a PhD. …In collaboration with colleagues he made lasting contributions in wildlife ecology and management, forest recreation, and wilderness management, coauthoring a methodology for assessing sustainability of use of campsites still applied by forest managers today. After serving several years as Associate Dean of the School of Forestry at the University of Montana, he was promoted to Dean in 1986. …He retired at a relatively young age to pursue a second career in wildlife illustration and bird painting…
VANCOUVER, BC — West Fraser Timber reported the second quarter results of 2026. Second quarter sales were $1.434 billion, compared to $1.334 billion in the first quarter of 2026. Second quarter earnings were $(61) million, compared to earnings of $(188) million in the first quarter of 2026. Second quarter Adjusted EBITDA was $59 million compared to $(66) million in the first quarter of 2026. Other highlights include: Lumber segment Adjusted EBITDA of $41 million, including a $13 million favourable in-year duties adjustment; North America Engineered Wood Products segment Adjusted EBITDA of $13 million; Europe Engineered Wood Products segment Adjusted EBITDA1 of $13 million; and Other Operating Segments Adjusted EBITDA of $(8) million, due largely to maintenance at our Cariboo pulp facility. …”West Fraser’s second quarter results delivered continued progress against our business priorities supported by improved market conditions,” said Sean McLaren, West Fraser’s CEO….Based on our current outlook… capital expenditures for 2026 are expected to remain within the $300 million to $350 million range.
Canadian wildfires are driving up the price of wood products that the US construction industry depends on — with knock-on effects on housing. Western Spruce Pine Fir futures were selling for $653 per thousand board feet in late July, not far off last year’s high, and up from a low of $524 in late January. The 937 wildfires threatening forests throughout BC are driving that increase. Alex Strong at the NAHB, said President Trump’s proposed 50% tariff on Canadian goods is adding to uncertainty around the supply chain. Set to take effect Aug. 19, the 50% tariffs would directly apply to Canadian plywood, fiberboard and other wood-derived products used in homebuilding. Canada is one of the top suppliers of fiberboard to the US. Derek Nighbor, CEO of FPAC, said that the country is also America’s third-largest supplier of plywood. …The US Congress Joint Economic Committee warned that Trump’s tariffs on a range of materials could increase building costs by $10,900 per home.
Two numbers describe President Trump’s new tariffs on Canada, and they point in opposite directions. 50% is the rate, imposed Monday under Section 338 of the Tariff Act. 2.5% is the effect. The Hub‘s reporting on the proclamations puts the affected goods at roughly 5.5% of Canadian exports now crossing the border duty-free. Weight the new duties by those trade flows and Canada’s average effective tariff rate rises by about 2.5 percentage points, pushing the blended rate toward 10%. The composition of the list reinforces the arithmetic. …Before this round, Canada faced the lowest overall tariff rate of any US trading partner—roughly 6% weighted by 2024 trade flows. Even after the duties take effect in mid-August, Canada remains among the least-tariffed economies selling into the American market. …At the level of the firm, the damage is real and concentrated. …At the level of the national economy, the needle barely moves. Both readings are true simultaneously.
Drax’s Pellet Production adjusted EBITDA fell 14% to £64 million in the first half of 2026 from £74 million a year earlier, as production declined and internal sales prices fell. Pellet output decreased to 1.9 million metric tons from 2.1 million metric tons, according to Drax Group. The lower production reflected the closure of the Williams Lake pellet plant in Canada and outages at facilities in the U.S. South. Drax also weighted more production toward the second half of 2026 to align pellet supply with expected generation at Drax Power Station. Market conditions affected the Canadian business through limited fibre availability and lower margins. Canadian operations otherwise performed well during the period, while Drax continued a strategic review of the business. Cost reductions in the U.S. South also lowered Pellet Production earnings under Drax’s cost-plus transfer-pricing system.
GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan — UFP Industries reported results for the second quarter 2026. Net Sales of $1.88 billion increased by 3% compared to $1.84 billion a year ago due to a 1% increase in organic units and a 2% increase due to acquisitions. …Net Earnings Attributable to Controlling Interests of $83 million compared to $101 million a year ago. Earnings were primarily impacted by higher freight costs while a weaker residential construction market was offset by improvements in other business units. Adjusted EBITDA was $154.5 million in the quarter, compared to $174.1 million a year ago. …UFP Industries is a holding company whose operating subsidiaries – UFP Packaging, UFP Construction and UFP Retail – manufacture, distribute and sell a wide variety of value-added products used in residential and commercial construction, packaging and other industrial applications worldwide.
Federal Way, Washington – Pacific Lumber Inspection Bureau (PLIB) has expanded its 
While US President Trump threatens tariffs over wildfire smoke drifting south, Canadian fire experts say large forest fires are inevitable. Over the past week, Trump has criticized Canadian fire management and said the country is “poisoning” U.S. air. …But experts say Canada’s worsening fire seasons reflect a harder reality: not every blaze, or the smoke that comes from it, can be stopped. “Saying that you would need to extinguish very huge fires like this is similar to trying to stop a hurricane,” said Martin Girardin, a forest ecology researcher with NRCan. …As of Monday, more than 900 fires were burning across Canada and more than 3.7 million hectares had burned in 2026, according to the Canadian Wildland Fire Information System dashboard. Girardin said climate change is helping drive worse fire seasons by bringing warmer temperatures and drier conditions, while many forests also have a buildup of fuel, including mature trees and other biomass.
For the third time in the past four years, Americans are choking on smoke from Canada’s burning forests. Last week, roughly 900 wildfires turned the skies over Minneapolis, Chicago and New York into an apocalyptic haze. …Why does this keep happening? …Canada isn’t the only one with a wildfire problem. America’s forests are burning too. Fires are raging in northern Minnesota and across much of the western United States. …The media and politicians are quick to blame climate change, but the reality is that forest management works. Fuel treatments such as thinning, brush clearance and prescribed burning remove small trees, brush and dead material that allow flames to climb into the canopy and explode into a dangerous crown fire. …Canada does strikingly little of this work. The problem is that Canada has regulated the cure nearly out of existence. …American forest management is snarled by many of the same problems. 
This fog-shrouded patch of coastal forest in the heart of Yurok Country was tended by the tribe for millennia. But in the Gold Rush era it was taken away and, later, used by the logging industry, reshaping the landscape. Now, as the land heals from the scars of a long-running lumber mill, it has been returned to its original stewards, who will operate it as a public gateway to Redwood National and State Parks about 50 miles south of the Oregon border. Save the Redwoods League in June conveyed the 125-acre property to the Yurok Tribe following a yearslong project to restore the degraded industrial site to a diverse riparian habitat. It opens to the public Saturday as ‘O Rew Redwoods Gateway, which features interpretive exhibits and trails leading to old-growth redwood groves.
The U.S. Forest Service has promised to approve at least 20,000 acres a year worth of forest thinning projects annually to support forest restoration and wildfire protection in the footprint of the Four Forest Restoration Initiative, or 4FRI. The commitment is key to the 4FRI effort to save Northern Arizona’s forests and forested communities, partly because it provides a guarantee of biomass to support loggers and support industries. The 4FRI collaboration on the Tonto, Coconino, Apache-Sitgreaves and Kaibab forests remains the most ambitious forest restoration effort on the continent. However, the fitful approvals of logging and restoration projects has hobbled the timber industry needed to thin millions of overgrown, fire-prone acres. The slow pace of project approvals has limited the growth of the logging industry, especially crucial operations that can make use of the low-value biomass produced by every thinning project.
Trump administration officials and members of Congress walked along the burn scar from Utah’s devastating Cottonwood Fire last week…. If the forest had been thinned, with “a lot fewer trees per acre, and maybe even some controlled burns to take the underbrush out, there’s just not the fuel there when these fires start to make them catastrophic fires,” Rep. Bruce Westerman said. The Arkansas Republican chairs the House Natural Resources Committee. But these traditional fire prevention methods may no longer work with a changing climate that makes hot, dry weather increasingly the norm said Dominik Kulakowski, a professor of geography at Clark University in Massachusetts. “The implication of that,” he said, “is that we’re losing our ability to manage forest fires.” …The Trump administration issued a directive this year calling on federal agencies to aggressively suppress all fires — including the smaller ones that forests evolved with and may keep them healthy.
The Trump administration is drastically changing the way the country protects endangered species, potentially jeopardizing years of policymaking in Oregon. Still, Oregon land regulators are moving ahead with plans for protecting Oregon’s forests that are essential for endangered species, including marbled murrelets and spotted owls. …For more than six years, Oregon land agencies, conservationists and loggers have been crafting plans that will protect Oregon’s most sensitive habitats, while also helping landowners avoid lawsuits when their logging projects harm federally endangered species. …Earlier this month, the Trump administration announced it is removing the definition of “harm” under the Endangered Species Act, effective in September. …Last year, Gov. Tina Kotek and multiple Oregon state agencies submitted comments opposing the change. …“In Oregon, where approximately 53% of the land is federally managed, habitat protection is essential to ongoing conservation efforts,” Kotek wrote.
Seven years ago, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, with the support of local residents, took the U.S. Forest Service to federal court to halt the Hanna Flats logging, road-building and burning project on the Idaho Panhandle National Forests in North Idaho. The good news — for grizzly bears, old growth forests and the local populace — is that a federal appeals court just ruled for the Alliance. The logging project is located in the habitat of the imperiled Selkirk grizzly bears, which have been reduced to a mere 50 bears when the minimum needed for recovery is 100 bears. The bears suffer from human-caused mortality at unsustainable rates and are regularly displaced and harmed from logging and road-building. …There is no hope of recovering this imperiled grizzly population as required by the Endangered Species Act unless the government starts complying with the law. This court decision is one step in the right direction.
Nine months after its first prescribed burn in 150 years, a 22-acre patch of forest on Wisconsin Point is starting to show the effects. On one side of the road to the beach, the understory, or plants growing from the ground, are tall and dense. It’s not what a healthy red pine forest should look like, said Callie Grones, an outreach coordinator with the Lake Superior National Estuarine Reserve. On the other side at the “burn unit,” the ground is a little clearer, although still very green, the bottoms of the pine trees are charred and wild blueberries are thriving. …“Ojibwe people, when they were living out here, they used fire almost in a routine,” Grones said. The forest’s health was maintained through that fire.” … Stewardship Coordinator Kirsten Rhude said it will take a few years before the full advantages of the burn appear. 
PORT ANGELES, Washington — The Clallam County commissioners are set to throw their support toward a company exploring the possibility of repurposing the former McKinley Mill site. The commissioners discussed a letter of support for Candelaria Industries’ Biopower Redevelopment Proposal with the US Endowment for Forestry and Communities’ request for proposals for repurposing closed wood products facilities for bioenergy development. Candelaria Industries purchased the former McKinley Mill site in June and is evaluating potential reuse of the industrial property and existing infrastructure. …On June 15, the endowment launched a funding opportunity to assessed closed wood products facilities for bioenergy development, the site states. Up to $500,000 in funding is available “to test the renewable energy and economic potential of idled industrial sites in forest-dependent regions,” according to the site.
Dangerous heat is gripping parts of the United States, with more than 39 million people under heat alerts across much of the South as temperatures are expected to rise over the weekend. Temperatures in some cities have climbed above 100°F. …The “heat dome” that brought extreme heat to much of the central and eastern U.S. has shifted west and is expected to intensify before expanding into the intermountain West and northern High Plains this weekend. Parts of the Southwest are forecast to reach 110-120°F from late this week into early next week, with some locations expected to experience one of their 10 hottest days on record. Extreme heat warnings are in effect on Friday across parts of six states: Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, Oklahoma and western Arkansas. …Such levels are “dangerous for anyone without adequate cooling or hydration,” the weather service warned.
WOODBINE, Ga. — Firefighters are continuing to battle an 800-acre wildfire in Camden County after smoke from the fire forced a portion of Interstate 95 to close overnight. The wildfire started Wednesday evening after a lightning strike in a remote marsh area, according to the Georgia Forestry Commission. Officials said the location of the fire has made it difficult for crews to access from the ground. “This is a very, very remote area with limited access as the majority of the fire is out in the marsh area,” Stockett said. The Georgia Forestry Commission said crews are using multiple resources to fight the fire, including helicopters and forestry personnel working to strengthen containment lines. Stockett said the fire was about 800 acres and 50% contained as crews continued working in the area. Smoke from the wildfire created visibility issues along I-95, leading officials to temporarily close part of the interstate. The roadway has since reopened.