B.C. LOGGING TRUCKS #35 — Kenworth T800 & W900 Logging Trucks Hauling Through The City

B.C. Logging Trucks #35 features Kenworth logging trucks hauling through the city of Vernon, British Columbia. The silver Kenworth T800 Quad Wagon features 9‘6“ wide bunks which hauls beetle kill logs. The regular bunk width of on-highway British Columbia log trucks is 8’6”. The extra foot wide bunks are permitted to haul the lighter logs which the Mountain Pine Beetle have ravaged.

The mountain pine beetle (MPB) epidemic has now infected and/or killed over 17.5 million hectares (43.2 million acres) of B.C. lodgepole pine forest (an area roughly double the size of New Brunswick or Austria). B.C. government reports indicate that 51% of the merchantable lodgepole pine volume in the province had been killed by 2010, and the most recent estimates are that 58% will be killed by 2016 as the epidemic tapers off. As the rate of new infection finally winds down, the mid- and long-term impacts are coming into focus.

It has now been 10 years since the B.C. government released its first mountain pine beetle action plan. Sawmills in the hardest-hit regions of the B.C. Interior are now facing the challenge of cutting logs that have been dead for eight to 10 years (or more). Some timber supply management areas have begun to see MPB-related reductions in the allowable annual cut (AAC). From the current (2012) Interior AAC of 60 million m3 (both public and private land), the AAC is expected to decline to about 40 million m3, a reduction of 20 million m3 (33%). For perspective, the AAC prior to the beetle impact was about 50 million m3.