Forest fires raging in British Columbia’s (BC) southern interior have burned trees worth an estimated C$5.6bn as finished timber, according to the Council of Forest Industries.
The council believes about 14 billion board feet of lumber have been affected so far, equivalent to three-quarters of Canada’s softwood exports to the US last year. It also represents about three times the annual allowable harvest in BC’s southern Interior.
Some of the burned timber can still be sold or turned into wood chips for the pulp and paper industry.
Fires have damaged 200,000ha of forest in the Kamloops and Kelowna region, an area containing about 57 million m3 of timber.
