BC Announces Plans to Accelerate Fiber Recovery and Reduce Wildfire Risk

On Friday, British Columbia announced that workers and communities throughout BC are beginning to benefit from Forest Enhancement Society of BC (FESBC) supported projects that reduce wildfire risk and increase fiber supply, keeping local mills and energy plants running in the face of potential US tariffs and softwood lumber duties.

With CA$28 million (US$19.3 million) from the province, FESBC is supporting 43 new and expanded fiber-recovery projects and 31 new and expanded wildfire-mitigation projects.

Projects are taking place in all eight of the province’s natural resource regions, helping create jobs, reducing wildfire risk, and supporting BC’s pulp and biomass sector. They will be completed by the end of March, in advance of wildfire season.

Fiber-recovery projects take wood fiber that would otherwise be burned or abandoned and put it in the hands of mills and forestry companies that can use it, helping keep forestry workers on the job. Through the province’s continued investment in FESBC, the projects they support have delivered 44,000 logging truckloads worth of fiber out of the bush since April 2024. That fiber would once have been burned in slash piles and is instead creating jobs and revenue for local businesses.

As part of the 2024 budget, BC announced FESBC would get an additional CA$60 million over three years to continue community-focused wildfire risk-reduction and fuel-management projects, as well as improving utilization of biomass from harvested timber.