A total fire and equipment ban at the height of the Pigeon Valley fire is estimated to have cost the industry $2m a day.
Now it’s back in operation Jones said there are lessons for the industry.
“Mother Nature put a halt to operations for a 10-day period and that had an immediate impact right through the supply chain from harvesting to sawmilling and both domestic and export trade.
“It’s shown how quickly the supply chain falls over without access to resource.
“The medium to long term damage will now be assessed between the forest owners and insurers,” Jones said.
With harvesters back at work forestry owners need to take a lesson from the event and improve their readiness for the future.
“Forest owners need to be a lot more fastidious with fire breaks and water storage facilities and also with our aspirations for one billion trees – in those regards change is on the way.
“I expect, given an increase in insurance premiums, owners will do this themselves.
“I don’t think it’s necessary that every time we encounter a calamity such as this that I reach for the regulatory gun.
“Owners of forests need to pull finger and deal to the problem and I do have a lot of confidence in the leading personalities of the industry to do this,” Jones said.
Forest Owners’ Association communications manager Don Carson said what is lost in the commentary is the fact it wasn’t a forest fire in the first place.
“We have a sophisticated set of protocols in our code of practice (COP) as far as fire risk is concerned.
“I am not aware of any other industry that has such an established COP.
“We got our crews out early, we operate through years of experience and work hard on stringent protocols and safety.”
Two companies in the region lost a considerable amount.
Some trees, those over 20 years old, will still have a market as burnt trees but the younger trees were all burnt out.
“I expect the losses will be in the millions right across the industry, including the processing industry.
“It was very close to a critical situation with supply to the mills, some mills almost closing as supply had all but run out.”
