Timber Harvest Levels

Timber harvest levels from public and private forestlands over the past 20 years have remained relatively stable, although the Great Recession (2007-09) and the collapse of the housing market brought a severe contraction in the U.S. demand for lumber. Consequently, Oregon’s timber harvest reached a modern-era low in 2009, the smallest harvest since the Great Depression in 1934. By 2013, the harvest had rebounded to roughly pre-recession levels. In the five most recent years where data is available (2017-2021), Oregon timber harvest averaged around 3.8 billion board feet. The 2020 Labor Day fires led to a short-term increase in timber harvest due to post-fire salvage logging on private land. However, long-term annual timber harvest is expected to decrease between 100 and 250 million board feet per year from 2026 to 2065 due to loss of future growth on trees killed by wildfires in 2020.