A major US housing affordability bill became law without President Trump’s signature. In other Business news: Mercer received a Nasdaq non-compliance notice; Hunt Forest Products begins shipments on new rail connection; International Paper temporarily suspends its Alabama mill; and the EPA requires hazardous chemical removal at shuttered Cosmo Specialty Fibers mill. Meanwhile: Numera Analytics says the Iran conflict has not derailed the global recovery; technology is changing homebuilding in BC; US homebuilders face shortage of skilled workers; Rebox Corp appoints Kyle Otting CEO; and the Pacific Lumber Inspection Bureau elected a new board.
In Forestry news: the Trump administration narrows Endangered Species Act protections; Californians debate the Fix Our Forests Act; BC outdoor groups prioritize resource roads for recreation access; and a European report says timber producers face fibre supply challenges. Meanwhile: a new warning for tick-borne disease; and why doctors say we need to take wildfire smoke seriously.
Finally, in case you missed it, we reintroduced political risk expert Robert McKellar, who helps forest sector leaders make sense of today’s relentless news cycle and focus on what really matters.
Kelly McCloskey, Tree Frog News Editor
…As some resource roads across the province fall into disrepair … outdoor groups are working to save them. 
People are invited to share their input and help guide the development of recommendations and long-term solutions for water supply and ecosystem health in the Goat River watershed. The Province of British Columbia, in partnership with yaqan nuʔkiy (Lower Kootenay Band) and the Regional District of Central Kootenay (RDCK), has launched a tripartite working group to address growing water-scarcity challenges in the Goat River watershed and develop recommendations for long-term water management in the Creston Valley. As part of the process, a survey will gather insights from community members, water users, farmers, industry and other interested parties about their vision for the Goat River watershed. The survey is available until Aug. 1, 2026. …The Goat River Watershed Collective Conversations Working Group brings together representatives from the Province, yaqan nuʔkiy and the RDCK. It will serve as a recommendation-making body, developing joint recommendations for consideration by yaqan nuʔkiy leadership, the RDCK board of directors and provincial ministries. 
Mayor Scott Gillingham announced today he will bring forward a proposal to City Council next week to maintain full funding for tree planting in the 2026 Urban Forest Renewal Program. The move follows public feedback about a proposed budget amendment that would have reduced 2026 tree planting work by $1.236 million to offset a provincial government change to the City’s Strategic Infrastructure Basket funding allocation. “Winnipeggers care deeply about our urban forest, and I’ve heard that clearly,” said Mayor Scott Gillingham. “The public wants this tree planting funding protected. I agree, and I’ll be bringing forward a plan to Council next week to do exactly that.” City Council adopted Winnipeg’s first Urban Forest Strategy in 2023, setting a long-term plan to protect, preserve, and grow the city’s tree canopy.
Open letter to Premier David Eby, B.C.’s Minister of Forests, Ravi Parmar, spoke in Revelstoke about his hopes for sawmills, old- growth and caribou protection (recently). It is evident Parmar is misinformed about the issues critical to the Revelstoke community and other British Columbia residents, and is failing to act on your government’s commitments to climate action, environmental protection, and sustainability. When asked about protecting old-growth within the Revelstoke region, such as the Rainbow-Jordan Wilderness (RJW), Parmar stated: “What I wouldn’t support is just saving land for the sake of saving land and seeing mills close down.” That response demonstrated a lack of understanding of community priorities. …The minister’s comments also show a lack of understanding of the Old Growth Strategic Review, which your government commissioned and committed to implementing. Rather than perpetuating the volume-based resource extraction model, a shift to a value-added sustainable forestry is needed for the provincial economy and long-term employment opportunities.
KAMLOOPS – Effective at 12 p.m. (noon) on Friday, July 10, 2026 Category 1 campfires will be prohibited throughout the Kamloops Fire Centre to help prevent human-caused wildfires and protect public safety. This campfire prohibition will remain in effect until October 9, 2026 at 12 p.m. (noon), or until the orders are rescinded. As of Friday, July 10, category 1, 2 and 3 fires are prohibited in the Kamloops Fire Centre: A campfire is defined as: Any fire no larger than 0.5 metres high by 0.5 metres wide (a fire larger than this is considered a Category 2 fire), Used by any person for recreational purposes or by a First Nation for a ceremonial purpose.
A historic drought is turning Colorado’s mountain landscapes into a tinderbox. After last winter’s record-low snowpack, wildland firefighters who continuously monitor indexes of weather and climate data to help predict wildfire risk and how conditions might affect fire behavior say they’re staring down unprecedented levels of dryness. “That lack of snowpack has had a very real impact on the fuels, the vegetation — specifically the large logs that are on the ground,” said Jim King, the fire behavior analyst for the Willow Fire burning near Leadville. “Those are 1,000-hour fuels. The way we measure those in this line of work, they’re just at the very peak. They’re basically as dry as they can get.” …King described how bone-dry logs in the dense forest near Turquoise Lake, along with high winds, contributed to 100-foot columns of flames and extreme fire behavior that at times threw “spots” …more than a half mile ahead of the blaze.
Officials at the U.S. Forest Service are proposing new management plans for eastern Oregon’s Blue Mountains that include potentially tripling the amount of logging across 5.5 million acres in the next decade. The Forest Service published a draft of proposed changes to the 35-year-old Blue Mountain Forest Plan last week. It would allow more logging, mining and grazing across four national forests spread across eastern Oregon, as well as parts of southeast Washington: the Malheur, Ochoco, Wallowa-Whitman and Umatilla National Forests. The public has until Sept. 30 to submit comments on the 350-page draft proposal. The draft plan … predicts everything from habitat conservation to forest carbon storage would improve over the long term if more logging is allowed because strategically logging and grazing parts of the forest would prevent wildfire, which officials characterize as the biggest threat to habitat and forest loss. Environmental advocates disagree with the framing.
Hydro-Québec has reached an agreement with the Atikamekw community of Opitciwan and Société en commandite Onimiskiw Opitciwan (SCOO) to build a 4.8MW forest biomass cogeneration plant that will replace the community’s diesel-fired power generation, with commercial operation expected to begin this month. Under the 25-year agreement … the utility will also fund the acquisition and installation of a dryer at the Opitciwan sawmill, majority-owned by the Conseil des Atikamekw d’Opitciwan (CAO). The project is estimated to cost C$60.2 million (around $45 million), with funding contributions from the Quebec provincial and Canadian federal governments alongside investment from CAO and SCOO. The Atikamekw are a First Nations people numbering around 8,000 across several communities in northern Quebec; Opitciwan itself is home to close to 3,000 residents. …”Replacing the current diesel plant with one that’s powered by forest biomass from the sawmill is a huge step forward,” said Denis Clary, President of SCOO.
Trees do not necessarily keep growing for as long as they keep photosynthesizing, according to a new study published in Science Advances. Researchers found that oak trees continue absorbing carbon dioxide well after their annual growth has ended, suggesting forests may store less carbon in wood than many climate models currently predict. The discovery challenges a long standing assumption that higher rates of photosynthesis naturally lead to greater tree growth. If trees continue taking in carbon without turning much of it into new wood, less carbon may remain locked away over the long term. …Scientists have generally expected that rising atmospheric CO2 levels would boost photosynthesis, leading to faster growth and increased long term carbon storage. The new findings suggest …trees may continue absorbing carbon, [but] much of it does not necessarily become new wood. Instead,[it’s] used for other functions, reducing the amount of carbon stored in forests compared with previous expectations.
Smoke from two major wildfires burning in British Columbia’s Fraser Canyon is leading to air quality warnings across parts of the province, with an emergency physician warning the health effects extend far beyond watery eyes and a scratchy throat. “It is considered to be one of the biggest public health threats that we face,” said Dr. Courtney Howard, who is also the president-elect of the Canadian Medical Association. … “The particulate matter in smoke that’s less than 2.5 microns can go all the way down into our lungs, and the ultrafine particles can actually cross over into our bloodstream,” she said. …Howard said scientists are only beginning to understand the long-term health effects of repeated wildfire smoke exposure because the research is still limited. “We don’t have good evidence on the long-term outcomes yet,” she said. But a small number of studies, according to Howard, have suggested possible links with high rates of brain cancer and lung cancer.
The Gold Mountain fire in Ouray County, west of Pueblo, has now burned more than 32,000 acres, but firefighters were hoping to make progress Thursday before forecast hot weather begins this weekend. In the latest update from the fire incident management team, authorities said 984 people were working on the blaze, which is now 8% contained. Much of the focus remains on protecting any structures that might be threatened by the fire, which has closed areas to the public in the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison national forests. Jeramy Dietz, operations section chief for the incident management team, said firefighters were pleased to be able to allow some people back into the area to see their homes on the southwest side of the fire. Now, a lot of the focus is on getting containment lines built to the north and east of the active fire.
Firefighting aircraft battled to contain a wildfire raging in a forest south of Paris for a second day on Monday, with the blaze forcing some residents from their homes as the region baked in a latest heatwave. French officials rushed two firefighting planes to the Paris region Sunday, after a fire erupted south of the French capital, disrupting traffic during a busy summer travel weekend and piling more misery on a region sweltering through its latest heatwave. The fire, which officials described as “very virulent” and of “exceptional scale”, began late afternoon in the sprawling Fontainebleau forest about 60 kilometres (40 miles) south-east of the capital, a onetime royal hunting preserve that today is dotted with quiet villages. It had raced across 800 hectares and was still spreading, officials said early Monday, causing the partial closure of the A6 highway, the country’s main north-south artery.
At least 12 people have died and 23 others are missing in a wildfire in southern Spain, Andalusia’s regional leader Juanma Moreno has said. Four of the victims may be British, Andalusia officials say. Hundreds of people are trying to contain the fire, which Moreno said appeared to have been caused by a downed power line. The flames then spread in a wooded area around Los Gallardos, Almería. A sustained heatwave with temperatures of around 40C (104F) has caused wildfires across Southern Europe this summer. …Antonio Sanz, Andalusia’s health and emergencies minister, said the fire had been complex and rapid and the majority or even all of the victims may have been foreign nationals. …The fire also led to road closures, while 1,000 residents were evacuated, according to emergency services. Spain’s Military Emergency Unit (UME) said it had deployed 220 soldiers and 70 vehicles to the Almería region to combat the blaze.