California lacks lumber mills, biomass plants to cut wildfire risk
Niel Fischer’s company sits on an enormous stack of kindling — a staggering backlog of dead and dying trees that could catch fire again. Collins Pine Co. was left with 30,000 acres of blackened pines and firs after the Dixie Fire ripped through the company’s private forest in Plumas County this past summer. … California’s wildfire crisis is being fed by a host of problems, notably climate change and drought. The dilemma at Collins illustrates another contributing factor: a shortage of places for the state to process wood.
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