Wood supply continues to be a concern for mills near in Williams Lake, B.C., as the wildfire season unfolds.

Since July 7, logging operations have been shut down in the Cariboo-Chilcotin region due to the fire danger risk. But even before that, inventory was low, the manager of West Fraser’s Williams Lake Plywood Plant told the Williams Lake Tribune.

“We have been getting logs from Quesnel, from out west and from east of 100 Mile House,” Dave Walgren said. “The advantage of being a larger company is that it can we can rely on companies in the north and south of Williams Lake. It is a concern, but guys are working hard to make sure there’s enough wood to run the plant.”

Tolko’s Soda Creek division plant manager Mike Dextrase said the company has a few days of logs in the bush, but has lost many cubic metres of decked wood to the fires.

“We hope to pick away at what we do have and hope it helps bridge the gap until the fire risk allows logging to restart,” Dextrase said. “This is a concern for all mills and areas south of here as many other facilities are low or out of logs which will mean more jobs will be affected, at least until the weather helps slow the fires.”

Read the full story for more details of the companies’ fire protection efforts.

Photo by NASA Worldview (NASA Worldview) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons