From the Fields

I'm currently logging on our tree farm, and I'm working in an area where I need to improve what is called a fire-control ridge. I've put a lot of energy into upgrading all of my ridges that potentially could be used if there's a fire. I think a lot of people are doing that.

It's just really dry, like it is for everybody, so it's dusty. We've just had to be extra careful to make sure we don't have any ignitions. I'm also hoping that we don't get any dry lightning that will start fires like we had last year. One of the problems with that was all those big fires put all kinds of burnt timber on the log market, and that kept the log market depressed, because there was an oversupply of burned logs. The sawmills were inundated with way more logs than they could mill, so the price for logs was depressed as a result of that. I'm just hoping we can get through this year without any lightning fires.

I'm focusing right now in an area that's mostly redwood. The price of redwood is OK, but there is some doug fir that goes with it, and I'm not getting very much for that doug fir, because people just don't want it. Lumber prices are still pretty good, even though there've been adjustments back down to the pre-COVID lumber prices that existed. The log market doesn't reflect that. There's just an oversupply of logs. The mills don't need to go out of their way to buy logs because there's way more than they can handle. There is demand for lumber, but there is no extra demand for logs. It's the log market that is depressed because there's an oversupply of logs from the fires. Most of it is probably going to go to waste.

I just hope we can go through this year without more fires from lightning like we had last year and have all these ignitions all at once. If we have the same thing happen again, we're going to have an oversupply of burnt timber on the market. Yes, there's going to be fires and they're going to be human caused and they're going to be big. We had a million acres on Mendocino National Forest and surrounding areas that burned last year here in Mendocino County and neighboring counties. We had a huge fire in Sonoma County and they're still logging that right now. Those logs are going into the mills here, and the mills can't take any more of that doug fir; they're just loaded up with it.