Panel data provided by Madison's Canadian Lumber Reporter.

Balmy Winter Weather Could Lead To Logging Woes

By 250 News

Will an early break-up leave local logging trucks sitting idle?

What was anticipated to be an extremely busy winter harvest because of beetle kill could reach a fever pitch because of the unseasonably warm weather across the region.

The weather is threatening to bring about an early break-up. The Ministry of Transportation has given advance notice that it may be forced to impose load restrictions on highways within the Fraser-Fort George Regional District.

District Manager Rick Blixrud says winter frost in the road keeps them at a higher strength, allowing loaded logging trucks to carry at 100-percent capacity. Blixrud says, "During times when the frost is coming out of the road, they become very soft and, therefore, we have to put on load restrictions to protect the investment that we made in the infrastructure."

The news is concerning to the General Manager of the Central Interior Logging Association, Roy Nagel. He says, "We may have real difficulty getting all of the timber that the mills need for their immediate needs into the mill-yards before the roads are deemed unsuitable for moving a lot of logs on."

Nagel says, "We normally go to about the third week of March before we face spring break-up. This year it could come considerably earlier."

The CILA GM adds that, "About 80-percent of the total logging harvest in this area is done roughly in 11 or 12 weeks of the winter and this year, the winter may only be about nine or 10 weeks."
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