Anchorage Daily News

FAIRBANKS -- The sour economy could hurt the state's annual timber sale in the Tanana Valley State Forest.

The state Division of Forestry hopes to sell more than 900 acres of birch and spruce to timber and firewood cutting companies next week, but it remains to be seen how much demand there will be for the wood.

Fairbanks area forester Marc Lee said the interest is hard to gauge.

The state put 11 different timber parcels up for bid. They range from as small as 20 acres to as large as 250 acres. Bids will open on Tuesday.

The total appraised value of the sale is $301,000, said Jeremy Douse, a Fairbanks area resource forester.

The timber sale is conducted each spring to meet the demands of Interior logging companies.

"The only thing that varies is some of the areas where we put them up for bid," Lee said.

Anticipating more interest from commercial firewood cutters, the state increased the amount of birch put up for bidding this year. Of the 900 acres up for bid, about 300 are birch.

That equates to an estimated 2,300 cords of birch fuel wood.

"We have added some birch sales this year because of the high demand for that," Lee said. "We go by what the commercial market is interested in."

The parcels for sale this year are spread across the Tanana Valley from Harding Lake to Nenana. They are accessible from roads built for other timber sales.

"Firewood sales have been strong and gaining momentum," Lee said. "We're still expecting some pretty lively activity on birch sales."

As a result of the strong demand, the appraised price of standing birch jumped more than $2 this year, from $7.77 per cord to $10.03, Douse said.

The state also put up about 600 acres of spruce for sale. That translates to an estimated 14,500 cords of spruce or 5.9 million board feet of saw lumber, Douse said.

The appraised price of spruce this year is $25.08 per cord compared to $23.24 last year.

Forestry officials don't expect all the parcels to be sold. Any parcels that don't sell in the auction will be sold over the counter at the state's appraised value, Douse said.

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