Alberta Wildfires Continue to Negatively Impact Tolko and West Fraser’s Log Harvesting Plans for 2023

Alberta’s South Peace News reported on Sunday (6-18-23) that wildfires across northern Alberta have hindered harvesting plans by two forestry companies in the High Prairie region: Tolko and West Fraser.

At an annual open house on June 8th to provide citizens an opportunity to review proposed operating plans for 2023–24 and five-year Lesser Slave Lake Regional Forest Management Plan, West Fraser—which operates High Prairie Forest Products—and Tolko presented their five-year plans for public comment. However, the companies’ intentions for the 2023 harvesting season changed somewhat when wildfires in the region started on May 4th.

According to South Peace News, Stuart Adkins, West Fraser’s planning superintendent for north-central woodlands, said, “We were finalizing our harvest plans for the year when the wildfires hit. Right now, we our changing our plans to salvage as much as we can.”

Adkins added that the main fires that have impacted the company are the Grizzly wildfire between High Prairie and Sawn Hills, the Kimiwan wildfire between McLennan and Nampa, and the Nipisi wildfire between Whitefish Lake First Nation and Smith east of the town of Slave Lake. “Over the past several weeks, we have been waiting to assess the fires.”

Hillary Wait, Tolko’s northwest regional forestry superintendent, said that Tolko has also been hit by the wildfires. However, the company’s High Prairie mill has not been operating since a fire on May 20, 2022, caused significant damage. Wait said, “Our logging plans have changed [to] a fire salvage,” South Peace News reported, adding that the Kimiwan and Nipisi wildfires have also hindered harvest plans for Tolko in those areas.