Biden sends firefighters, aid to Canada as wildfire smoke blankets much of the US. Related headlines include:
- International help rolls in to fight persistent Canadian wildfires
- Travellers cancel plans on Vancouver Island as concerns grow
- Alberta Premier downplays link between fires and climate change
- Climate change is exacerbating forest fires and vice versa
- US East Coast sees worst air quality in years
- Alberta is in a weather-free zone during heat wave
- Wear masks outdoors to protect against wildfire smoke
- U.S. Senate panel debates wildfire strategy
- CN adjusting rail operations amid wildfires
- Forests’ ability to trap carbon ‘goes up in smoke’
In other news: Drax carbon capture and storage consultations launched; US foreclosure activity sees spike; and US housing affordability posts solid gain.
Finally, could mass timber solve the US housing crisis?
Kelly McCloskey, Tree Frog Editor
Canadian railway CN is keeping an eye on the wildfires occurring across several provinces and it is adjusting operations as needed, the railway told FreightWaves Wednesday. According to Natural Resources Canada, opportunities for intense wildfires are high in both eastern and western Canada. Meanwhile, Reuters reported Monday that Canadian officials are bracing for a potentially destructive fire season amid warm and dry weather. …“We are making real-time adjustments to operations based on the latest information available on both the winds and wildfires in the different areas,” CN said. …CN would like to thank all emergency responders for their continued work and support across the country.” Intermodal shippers could divert from CN to [Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC)] or vice versa if one railway is impacted more than the other or use truck,” John Schmitter, chief commercial officer for RailState, a technology provider for rail car visibility.
People and businesses in British Columbia will benefit from new jobs, diversified supply chains and a stronger, cleaner economy following the Province’s successful trade mission to Asia. The two-week trade mission included Japan, the Republic of Korea (ROK), Singapore and Vietnam. …Premier Eby went to Japan and the ROK, where he was accompanied by Josie Osborne, Minister of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation; Brenda Bailey, Minister of Jobs, Economic Development and Innovation; and Jagrup Brar, Minister of State for Trade. The Premier also went to Singapore. Brar went to Vietnam, where he officially opened B.C.’s trade and investment representative office. …The trade mission focused on promoting B.C.’s strengths in key sectors, such as clean energy, clean technology, natural resources and critical minerals, information and communications technology, and agrifood.
OFGEM, the UK’s energy regulator, has launched a formal investigation into power company Drax to determine if the wood pellets burnt to generate electricity at its Selby plant breach sustainability rules. The regulator said this investigation does not imply that it has previously made “any findings about possible non-compliance”. …“Last year Drax appointed a third party to independently verify the accuracy of its biomass sustainability and profiling data as part of an ongoing process. Drax is confident in the compliance of its biomass with the Renewables Obligation criteria,” the firm said. …In a separate development, the UK Environment Agency has launched a consultation on Drax’s proposals to develop bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) at its Selby power station, to prevent the majority of CO2 emitted during electricity generation from entering the atmosphere. The consultation will run from 26 May 2023 to 29 June 2023 and will include a drop-in event in Drax village and a virtual drop-in session.
Solid nominal wage gains (unadjusted for inflation) combined with lower mortgage rates and home prices helped to boost housing affordability in the first quarter of 2023, but ongoing building material supply chain issues and expected cooling of wage growth signal ongoing concerns for affordability conditions in the year ahead. 45.6% of new and existing homes sold between the beginning of January and end of March were affordable to families earning the U.S. median income of $96,300. Although higher than in the final quarter of 2022 (38.1%), the latest HOI is still significantly lower than it was a year earlier (56.9%). The HOI shows that the national median home price fell to $365,000 in the first quarter, down from $370,000 in the final quarter of last year. Meanwhile, average mortgage rates were 6.46% in the first quarter, down from a series high of 6.80% in the fourth quarter.
With record numbers of homelessness, a cost-of-living panic and a prevalent housing crisis, North America has rarely seen such uncertainty when it comes to the housing market. As the scramble for stability continues, could we see mass timber and cross-laminated timber (CLT) step into the void? …Another symptom of the housing challenges the country faces is the impact on home sizes. Builders are responding to buyers who are still seeking affordable entry-level homes in a difficult climate. …
Heavy smoke conditions choking major US cities have thrust Canada’s wildfire response efforts into the spotlight, prompting fresh allegations that it is ill-prepared and underfunded to manage what is on track to be its worst-ever fire season. Critics have also blamed Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for repeatedly invoking climate change, saying that the warming conditions do not relieve the country of its duty to conduct certain preventative measures to manage its dense forests, such as forest thinning, brush removal, and small, controlled burns. …Canada’s government has also faced years of sharp criticism for failing to invest more in forest management strategies, such as thinning its forests, removing dead wood and underbrush, or ordering small, prescribed burns when appropriate. Such efforts have been adopted in other countries with dense forest areas. 
As smoke from Canadian wildfires caused the most hazardous air conditions on record in the Washington, D.C., area on Thursday, members of the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee said that Congress should lift federal firefighter pay and encourage logging to reduce the risk of future blazes. …Administration officials at the hearing, which was scheduled before smoke from massive fires in southeastern Canada drifted to major East Coast cities this week, appealed for more funding for federal wildland firefighters. Members of both parties on the committee also pushed for allowing more logging to reduce fire risk in overgrown forests. Several members of the panel commented on the timing of the hearing as a haze descended on the nation’s capital. …In a written statement, President Joe Biden called the smoke “another stark reminder of the impacts of climate change.” …Biden has also pushed for a permanent pay raise for federal wildland firefighters.
Ponderosa pine trees are one of the most ubiquitous conifer species in western North America, extending from southern British Columbia all the way down to northern Mexico. In the American Southwest…the 23-year megadrought may have these semi-arid trees at the end of their rope, according to new research by University of Arizona scientists. “Forests in the Southwest are no strangers to droughts but have largely been able to cope with periods of drought throughout history,” said Brandon Strange, lead author of a new study examining the role of monsoon precipitation in ponderosa pine forests across the Four Corners region. “However, the current megadrought is the most severe since the year 800 CE.” With declining winter snowpack and increasing temperatures, “we are starting to approach a level of drought where Southwestern forests, particularly those lacking regular summer rains, are really unable to cope with the stress,” said Strange.
The smokey haze from wildfires that has been lingering over Western Slope skies for the past two weeks, is a reminder that our own beetle-kill fueled fire season is upon us. More than 834 million trees destroyed by beetle kill are rotting in Colorado forests. Over 22% of standing trees in Colorado forests are dead. The Mountain Pine Beetle has affected 3.4 million acres of Ponderosa and Lodgepole Pine in Colorado. The Spruce Beetle has killed 40% of Colorado’s Engelmann Spruce forests. Beetle kill has ravaged some 5.1 million acres of forest in Colorado. Wood products created by logging store carbon. Beetle-kill harvesters and woodworkers are using beetle-kill lumber for siding, furniture, framing lumber, cabinetry and finish molding. In Colorado, the U.S. Forest Service charges beetle-kill harvesters $20 to remove two cords of wood. Rotting trees increase greenhouse gasses in forest ecosystems by 25%.
A controversial proposal to allow biomass plants to burn scrap tires for electricity has been withdrawn by the Georgia Public Service Commission for now anyway. Clean energy advocates applauded the five-member board’s unanimous vote Thursday that reversed its decision in April that granted the biomass industry’s request to use junked tires as a more reliable fuel source that improves the bottom line. …Biomass representatives can petition the state regulators to hold a public hearing in the hopes of regaining commissioners’ support over objections that burning tires is a threat to public health and the environment. …Biomass power plants typically use wood pellets to produce energy, but natural gas and old tires are gaining traction within an biomass energy sector that represents a small fraction of Georgia’s energy consumption. While wood generated electricity is not economically feasible in the U.S., it is more attractive in Europe where there are incentives for using this type of energy.
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MONTREAL – Quebec’s precarious wildfire situation is expected to remain stable over the next 48 hours but residents displaced by the raging forest fires likely won’t be able to return home until early next week, Premier François Legault said Thursday. “We have (as of) today, 13,500 people that have been evacuated, we think that it’ll be stable in the next few days,” Legault told a briefing, but said that evacuees from Chibougamau and Lebel-sur-Quévillon, Que., which account for a large number of those displaced, won’t be able to return until Tuesday at the earliest. Quebec’s wildfire fight was focused Thursday in the province’s northern and western regions, where flames had reached the doorstep of a municipality of roughly 800 people. Authorities said a wildfire was within 500 metres of Normétal, Que., located 720 kilometres northwest of Montreal, in the Abitibi region.