65 million Americans are under heat alerts as the life-threatening heat dome continues for second week. In related news: the USDA says fuel treatments reduce wildfire severity; extreme wildfire risk has doubled in the US; a Michigan professor promotes climate-smart forestry; Southeast Oregon expects its fire risk to worsen; and BC Indigenous leaders promote cultural burns. Meanwhile: BC’s Thompson Rivers University is looking to hire wildfire experts; and more calls for a delay in the EU’s deforestation regulation.
In other news: a New Hampshire sawmill is destroyed by fire; Kruger’s Corner Brook mill failed to inspect its boiler system; BC seeks fibre for shuttered Aspen Planer mill; Powell River Community Forest sets timber harvest record; the Southern Forest Products Association announced its 2023 Sawmill Award winners; and registration is now open for the Global Wood Summit 2024.
Finally, Canada’s inflation rose 2.9% in May, casting doubt on a July rate cut.
Kelly McCloskey, Tree Frog Editor
Conference registration is now open on the GLOBAL WOOD SUMMIT conference website! The lowest conference price of US$995 is available until July 31. Discounted hotel reservations at the Sutton Place Conference Hotel can also be made on the conference website. The GLOBAL WOOD SUMMIT features a wide range of industry experts, producers, exporters, importers and selected specialists focused on national and global trade. Our event is a great deal! If you look at the price tag of some other conferences you will see that we have the “real deal” in terms of speakers, topics and value. Our objective is to provide quality speakers to attract more delegates to enhance networking and business opportunities! Let’s face it – current market conditions are not great, so listening to hand-picked global speakers, suppliers and customers in and outside your own markets to hear what is going on around the world can be of strategic value to your business in 2025.
Canada’s annual inflation rate reaccelerated unexpectedly to 2.9% in May while measures of core inflation also increased, according to Statistics Canada, reducing the odds of a Bank of Canada rate cut in July. Analysts had expected inflation to cool to 2.6% from 2.7% in April. Statistics Canada said that acceleration was largely due to higher prices for services, which increased 4.6% in May. …The Bank of Canada’s closely watched measures of core inflation also edged up in May, surprising economists. …”Overall, with the data showing much faster price pressures than expected, this casts a lot of doubt on the possibility of a July cut.” The slowing of Canada’s annual inflation rate in April was one of the factors that prompted the Bank of Canada to cut its benchmark interest rate for the first time in four years earlier this month.
Though it’s been a relatively slow start to the wildfire season on Vancouver Island, local fire departments are keeping a close eye on wooded areas that border their communities. On Friday, the only wildfire on the Island was a .75-hectare blaze in the gully at Rogers Creek in Port Alberni that was listed as “being held,” while a small fire west of Duncan was brought under control on Thursday. …Coastal Fire Centre information officer Gordon Robinson said there’s no guarantee things will stay quiet — in 2022, a slow-starting fire season quickly became active for much of the summer. In Langford, Fire Chief Chris Aubrey said “interface” fires — wildfires that could potentially spread to urban land — are a serious worry for his department. …Aubrey said there can be some complacency about wildfires on the Island because the most serious ones tend to happen elsewhere in the province.
Thompson Rivers University (TRU) Wildfire, in partnership with the BC Wildfire Service, is the university’s response to one of the most pressing issues of our time. It’s a solutions-focused initiative addressing current and future wildfire challenges—and now you can be part of it. TRU Wildfire is 
.jpg.aspx)
The 2024 wildfire season is off to a destructive start. Nearly 20,000 wildfires have burned more than 2 million acres across the United States so far this year, and in New Mexico, thousands of residents fled under evacuation orders while their homes and businesses were destroyed by wildfires.The recent wet and mild winter in the West produced more grass and vegetation. Recent heat waves baked the region, drying out the new vegetation and creating the perfect fuel for a fire. And the prevalence and the power of the most extreme wildfires are growing. A new report finds that extreme wildfires appear to have doubled in the past 20 years, both in frequency and magnitude. It is those “energetically extreme” wildfires, associated with widespread damage to the environment and economy, that have been increasing. …But for climate scientists, the answer is to address the underlying cause: climate change.
…While wildfires are a natural annual occurrence, rising temperatures and intensified drought periods are creating drier, fire-prone weather that makes them burn faster, longer and more ferociously. In Europe they are becoming more frequent, intense and widespread. …But with rising temperatures expected to increase the risk of wildfires across Europe, is the continent prepared? …The focus of the EU’s fire response so far has been the expansion of firefighting capabilities through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism and RescEU program, which lend support to countries dealing with extreme wildfires. …Yet some scientists and policy experts argue the EU could do more to prevent fires starting in the first place. Around 90% of EU funding for tackling wildfires goes into response, and only 10% into prevention, according to one estimate from German EU lawmaker Anna Deparnay-Grunenberg.
Aymium, an innovator in renewable biocarbon solutions, has successfully secured $210 million in financing to build a new biocarbon production facility in Williams, California. Upon completion in 2025, the facility will be the world’s first large-scale, continuous operation dedicated to replacing coal with advanced biocarbon for power generation. The switch from coal to Aymium’s biocarbon is expected to cut greenhouse gas emissions by over 500,000 metric tons annually, which equates to removing more than 120,000 cars from the road each year. …In 2022, Aymium and Steel Dynamics formed SDI Biocarbon Solutions to develop a biocarbon production facility in Mississippi, which is set to become operational later this year. This initiative is poised to reduce Steel Dynamics’ Scope 1 emissions by up to 25% by replacing fossil fuels with renewable biocarbon in their steelmaking process. …Aymium’s biocarbon product is produced through an innovative non-combustion process, and is the only commercially demonstrated carbon-negative alternative to 
The death toll from a massive wildfire that ripped through Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast last week has risen to 15, hospital sources said on Monday as experts pointed to faulty wiring as a possible cause. The blaze, which broke out on Thursday between the cities of Diyarbakir and Mardin, killed 12 people outright and left five fighting for their lives. Three succumbed to their injuries on Sunday, the Anadolu state news agency said. …Hundreds of animals also perished in the blaze that roared across the dry landscape. The government said “stubble burning” was the cause but the Diyarbakir branch of Chambers of Turkish Architects and Engineers said in a report released late on Sunday there was “no stubble” in the area and saying the electric wires in the area were in a state of disrepair. …Turkey has suffered 74 wildfires so far this year, which have ravaged 12,910 hectares of land