Category Archives: Wood, Paper & Green Building

Vancouver was rocked by a number of fires on Aug. 06, 2024, including a raging blaze-up of a six-storey, wood-frame development that was near completion.  While the cause of the fire is not known at this time, the extraordinary damage can surely be attributed to the fact that this is a mass-timber construction project. Ironically, on June 11, 2024, Vancouver city council had voted to approve the construction of ‘encapsulated mass timber’ construction of buildings up to 18 storeys. …At the June meeting, concerns were expressed and the city’s building official Saul Schwebs noted that fire safety in mass timber buildings was based on testing and modelling, not an actual fire. …Now we know. It’s a disaster. The fire encompassed 8 other houses, resulted in a gas explosion, and brought down power and transit lines. It was very difficult to put the fire out. …Multi-storey wooden buildings? Why? Well. Climate action, of course.

Chris Kalesnikoff

CASTLEGAR — …a big parcel of bare land beside the Castlegar airport will be transformed into an 80,000-square-foot assembly plant for prefabricated mass timber buildings, thanks in part to $6.7 million from the provincial government. “We started as a forestry company, then a sawmill, then mass timber. And, now, with prefabricated mass timber buildings, we are in construction,” says Chris Kalesnikoff, chief operating officer of Kalesnikoff Lumber. …But there is an elephant in the room. The state of the province’s wood supply is simply “horrible,” says Kalesnikoff. Kalesnikoff Lumber is in a better position than most, because it is able to use wood sourced from its own sawmill. However, even wood supply at the sawmill is on the downturn. …Gary Bull, professor emeritus at UBC’s department of forest resources management, says there are discussions underway among the provincial government, forestry companies and First Nations over the future of tenure management in B.C.

Are you a BC value-added wood products manufacturer or supplier/distributor? Or are you a stakeholder to BC’s value-added sector—e.g., primary producer, industry association, education/R&D organization, government oversight agency?

If so, your feedback is requested via a brief survey. The survey—part of BC Wood’s new five-year strategic plan—will help ensure we remain effective in addressing issues of importance to the sector. To all those who have responded, we thank you for your input. All responses will be held in strict confidence by our consultant, Wood N Frog Communications. The results will be collated in summary form only. The survey should only take 10 minutes. BC Wood is a not-for-profit trade association that represents BC’s value-added wood products industry with a membership base of 120 wood products manufacturers and a board of directors that represents every value-added sector in every region of the province.

The resiliency of wood construction was put to the test on Aug. 22, 2023. On that morning in downtown Prince George, UNBC’s Wood Innovation Research Laboratory was in the wrong place at the wrong time when an adjacent building formerly known as the Achillion Restaurant exploded. The ensuing fireball shot burning debris into the side of the wood innovation building with enough force to pierce the wall of the research lab, causing it to burst into flames. Despite the violence of the explosion and heat from the fire, the state-of-the-art mass timber structure – built to airtight Passive House energy efficiency standards – bent but did not break, proving the flexibility and strength of the wood mechanics that went into its construction, the university reported. The building, which is beside the Wood Innovation and Design Centre, is used by UNBC students to test cutting-edge design advancements in wood construction technology.

Additional coverage in My Prince George Now, by Darin Bain: UNBC touts resiliency of Wood Innovation Research Laboratory nearly a year after explosion

University of Northern British Columbia: From disaster to discovery: Wood Innovation Research Laboratory’s structural resilience

A new mass timber community centre and library with a green roof will replace the Cameron Community Centre and Library in Burnaby, B.C. The project is a significant step towards enriching the local infrastructure and supporting the community’s growing needs. The Burnaby City Council has awarded a construction contract to Graham Construction & Engineering LP for this massive redevelopment project. The building will be a mass timber structure, featuring a green roof visible to neighbouring buildings and solar panels to offset some of the electricity used. While the planned building is four times larger than the existing facility, the parking will be moved underground.

Are you a BC value-added wood products manufacturer or supplier/distributor? Or are you a stakeholder to BC’s value-added sector—e.g., primary producer, industry association, education/R&D organization, government oversight agency?

If so, your feedback is requested via a brief survey. The survey—part of BC Wood’s new five-year strategic plan—will help ensure we remain effective in addressing issues of importance to the sector. To all those who have responded, we thank you for your input. All responses will be held in strict confidence by our consultant, Wood N Frog Communications. The results will be collated in summary form only. The survey should only take 10 minutes. BC Wood is a not-for-profit trade association that represents BC’s value-added wood products industry with a membership base of 120 wood products manufacturers and a board of directors that represents every value-added sector in every region of the province.

…The building that went up in flames in the Dunbar area of Vancouver is a six-storey, wood-frame structure that had been under construction. Felix Wiesner, an assistant professor in the department of Forestry at the University of British Columbia explains buildings that are built with wood are at higher risk of fire breaking out during construction. “Most of the timber in a six-storey combustible wood building will be encapsulated, so hidden behind gypsum board. But during construction, all of that timber is available. So if there’s a fire, you have a very large fuel load potentially getting involved,” he explained. …However, once completed, and once safety features like sprinklers, alarms, and compartmentation are fully built in, Wiesner says wood-frame buildings are about as safe as concrete- or steel-frame buildings. …Wiesner says builders need to have a water source in the event of a fire, once combustible materials are brought to the site.

An out-of-control fire destroyed an apartment building under construction in Vancouver’s Dunbar neighbourhood on Tuesday and then spread to several nearby homes, totally engulfing one of them. According to Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services deputy chief Robert Weeks, emergency services were called to the intersection of Collingwood Street and West 41st Avenue at around 6:30 p.m. as fire consumed the six-storey, wood-frame development that was near completion. The blaze was so intense it caused a construction crane to crash down across West 41st Avenue, taking out trolley lines and power lines and leading to power outages south of the road. Thick plumes of smoke and large chunks of burning embers drifted west, east and north across the surrounding blocks. “A fire like that creates its own wind. When a fire is as big as it was, all that wood is fuel for the fire,” Weeks said.

What do a 12-storey wooden building, a heat pump installation course, a display of various wall and roof assemblies, and retrofits to dozens of campus buildings have in common? They’re all part of the B.C. Institute of Technology’s (BCIT) Living Labs show-and-tell approach about energy use in buildings. …”What sets B.C. apart from most provinces is our renewable BC Hydro electricity,” says Danica Djurkovic, BCIT’s associate VP of campus planning and facilities. “It allows us to approach building design with a focus on renewable energy.” The most visible sign of BCIT’s ambitions is the work-in-progress 12-storey Tall Timber student residence, which is due to be completed and ready to house 470 students in the fall of 2025. It features innovative construction including mass timber technology – five-ply hemlock cross-laminated timber panels and supporting steel columns – along with passive house concepts that will decrease cooling needs in the summer and heating needs in the winter.