DOVER-FOXCROFT, Maine — As large swaths of Canadian forest burn, concern is growing over the impact the fires could have on the cost of wood.
The United States imports more lumber from Canada than any other country on earth, and according to a report from the World Bank in 2020, the U.S. bought more than $8 billion dollars of lumber north of the border.
William Livingston is the director of the School of Forest Resources at the University of Maine. He says the burning forests have slowed timber production in Canada, leading to a decrease in supply to the U.S., which in turn would drive up prices.
"It's disrupting mills, it's disrupting harvest operations… the expectation is that [the supply of] wood from that area is going to go down this summer… which will affect the short-term price of lumber," Livingston said from his office in Orono on Tuesday.
Still, the impact is likely to be small in Maine. While the fires in Canada continue to burn a swath of land larger than our state’s Great North Woods, it is just a small part of the area available for timber harvest.
According to Livingston, there are more than 700 million acres of boreal forest in Canada. So far about 25 million have been burned. That's unlikely to make softwood scarce enough for prices to surge.
As Jason Brochu, the co-president of Pleasant River Lumber in Dover-Foxcroft puts it, "the forest is way bigger than the industry."
He predicts prices, if they do rise as a result of the fires, will not impact consumers. Right now, that remains to be seen, as the U.S. Producer Price Index shows the cost of softwood lumber has risen steadily since April.
Brochu says other factors, like rising interest rates, are behind this price hike. Either way, he doesn’t see a cause for panic in the short term, "any impact that’s going to be felt from a slight supply disruption won’t be felt for a little bit."