Southern France is facing an exceptional accumulation of damaged timber after two February storms and a destructive summer fire season, with an estimated 6\u20137 million m\u00b3 of maritime pine alone now potentially entering the market. The supply shock comes as a major outlet for industrial wood has disappeared, increasing pressure on pulpwood and lower-grade assortments while sawlog markets have so far proved considerably more resistant.<\/p>\n
The sequence of events has transformed the outlook for one of Europe's most important timber-producing regions within a matter of months. Storms Nils and Pedro crossed southern France on 12 and 18 February 2026, leaving substantial windthrow in the Landes de Gascogne and parts of Occitanie. Before all of that timber could be harvested, the large Saumos fire in Gironde on 22 July created another, much larger salvage operation.<\/p>\n
The disruption comes at a particularly difficult moment for the regional forest industry. Fibre Excellence stopped production at Saint-Gaudens and Tarascon in mid-April, sharply reducing demand for industrial wood in southern France. Tarascon was subsequently liquidated on 29 July, while the future of Saint-Gaudens remains unresolved. The result is an unusual combination: millions of cubic metres of additional timber requiring rapid harvesting at the same time as part of the industrial market for lower-quality wood has disappeared.<\/p>\n
In the Landes forest, the wind corridor created by the February storms ran broadly from Mont-de-Marsan towards the north-east of the department. Initial estimates now appear to have understated the damage because windthrow was widely dispersed rather than concentrated in a single clearly identifiable area.<\/p>\n
Jean-Charles Coste, a Landes forest owner and president of a local forestry technical and experimental centre, estimates that the damaged volume could represent 20\u201330% of a normal annual harvest in the Landes de Gascogne<\/strong>. That would correspond to approximately 1.2\u20131.8 million m\u00b3<\/strong>, predominantly maritime pine.<\/p>\n Occitanie suffered substantial damage as well, particularly in north-eastern H\u00e9rault and southern Aveyron. The French National Forest Office, ONF, estimates that public forests across Occitanie contain around 350,000\u2013400,000 m\u00b3 of windthrown timber<\/strong> requiring harvesting.<\/p>\n The most heavily affected area is the foothills and Hauts-Cantons of H\u00e9rault, where approximately 280,000 m\u00b3 of softwood<\/strong> was brought down. According to Simon Mewton, ONF's timber sales manager for Occitanie-Pyr\u00e9n\u00e9es-M\u00e9diterran\u00e9e, that volume alone represents at least two years of normal production in the affected area.<\/p>\n Private forests add another substantial volume. CNPF estimates around 160,000 m\u00b3 of windthrow across approximately 1,300 hectares<\/strong> in the Hauts-Cantons of H\u00e9rault, affecting nearly 300 forest owners in around 30 municipalities.<\/p>\n Damage across public and private forests was concentrated in softwoods, including maritime pine, spruce, Douglas fir, silver fir and other pine species. Even-aged plantations established under earlier French forest investment programmes appear to have been particularly vulnerable. Local observations also suggest differences between species, with spruce in some locations suffering heavier damage than Douglas fir.<\/p>\n The timing of the windthrow could hardly have been worse for the industrial-wood market. Since the end of the first quarter, southern France has been dealing with the loss of demand associated with Fibre Excellence's Saint-Gaudens and Tarascon pulp mills.<\/p>\n Both facilities stopped production in mid-April. Tarascon was definitively liquidated on 29 July, removing a major regional outlet, while Saint-Gaudens remains in a precarious position. For forest owners and logging companies, the consequences are immediate: small-diameter timber and lower-grade products generated during salvage operations have become considerably more difficult to place.<\/p>\n The composition of storm-damaged harvests makes the problem more acute. ONF estimates that industrial wood accounts for around 20\u201325% of windthrow volumes in the southern Massif Central<\/strong>, compared with roughly 10% in conventional harvesting operations. Companies and forest managers are consequently looking for alternative outlets for a volume of low-grade timber that is simultaneously increasing just as conventional demand contracts.<\/p>\n This divergence between industrial wood and sawlogs is becoming one of the defining features of the southern French market. The region does not currently suffer from a simple timber-price collapse across every assortment. Instead, the market is increasingly segmented according to quality and the availability of industrial outlets.<\/p>\n Before the summer break, demand for softwood sawlogs in parts of Occitanie remained surprisingly strong. A very wet winter had restricted harvesting and timber transport, leaving sawmills short of raw material during the spring. Competition for available logs was particularly intense in the southern Massif Central.<\/p>\n At the ONF sale held on 26 May, average standing prices for spruce reached \u20ac82\/m\u00b3<\/strong>, an increase of 73% in only nine months and above the previous records reached in 2022. Silver fir rose 68% over the same period to an average \u20ac67\/m\u00b3<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Douglas fir recorded a less spectacular but still significant increase of 14%, reaching an average \u20ac92\/m\u00b3<\/strong>, while the highest bids climbed to approximately \u20ac120\/m\u00b3<\/strong>.<\/p>\n These figures illustrate how unusual the current market has become. Southern French sawmills entered the salvage period after months of raw-material scarcity and rapidly rising log prices. The storms then abruptly increased timber availability, but not necessarily in the assortments most easily absorbed by mills.<\/p>\n This helps explain why sawlog prices did not immediately follow pulpwood lower. Mills still required suitable fresh logs, while a substantial part of the new salvage supply consisted of smaller, damaged or downgraded material.<\/p>\n The situation in the Landes maritime pine market is markedly different. Small-diameter thinning wood that had been selling for approximately \u20ac14\u201317\/st\u00e8re standing<\/strong> in early February was worth only around \u20ac6\u201310\/st\u00e8re<\/strong> in storm-damaged stands following Nils and Pedro.<\/p>\n The fall illustrates the fundamental problem created by salvage harvesting: timber has to move quickly, but buyers know that forest owners have limited ability to postpone sales. Storage possibilities are constrained, deterioration risk increases with time and harvesting damaged stands generally produces a larger proportion of low-grade material.<\/p>\n Maritime pine sawlogs initially resisted the decline much better. ONF public-sale data for the Landes region show moderate year-on-year reductions during the second quarter of 2026 rather than a collapse. Depending on average log size, prices were generally down between around 2% and 7% from the second quarter of 2025.<\/p>\n That relatively orderly adjustment, however, predates the much larger supply shock created by the July fires.<\/p>\n The Saumos fire of 22 July fundamentally changed the regional timber outlook. The immediate challenge is no longer simply clearing February windthrow but rapidly mobilising very large quantities of fire-damaged maritime pine.<\/p>\n Fran\u00e7ois Guiraud, president of the Comit\u00e9 Interprofessionnel du Pin Maritime, has put the preliminary quantity requiring harvesting at 4\u20135 million tonnes<\/strong>, describing it as slightly less than one year's consumption by the industries of the Landes forest region.<\/p>\n Once the February storm damage is included, total accidental maritime pine supply is currently estimated at around 6\u20137 million m\u00b3<\/strong>. Approximately 30% is attributed to storm damage and 70% to burned timber.<\/p>\n The figure is large enough to alter regional timber flows for months. Salvage operations following Nils were still unfinished when the fire occurred, meaning harvesting companies, hauliers, storage areas and industrial consumers now have to deal with two overlapping emergency timber programmes.<\/p>\n For logging companies, timing is critical. Industrial production was only gradually restarting after the summer holidays at the end of August and beginning of September, leaving uncertainty over how quickly mills can accept burned wood and at what prices.<\/p>\n Fire-damaged timber presents additional commercial problems. Burned bark is difficult to use and can complicate handling and processing, while timber quality depends heavily on the intensity of the fire and the time elapsed before harvesting.<\/p>\n Logging companies therefore expect significant discounts for affected assortments. Antoine Cosson, who runs the Gironde logging company SAS Berdot with his wife Magaly, says the industry had not yet finished processing the Nils windthrow when it was forced to begin planning the recovery of burned timber.<\/p>\n At the beginning of September, negotiations over quantities and prices were still at an early stage as mills returned from the summer shutdown. Expectations within the regional forestry sector nevertheless point towards significant reductions, particularly for industrial wood and damaged sawlog assortments.<\/p>\n Forest owners are hoping that the price effect can be contained within salvage timber and does not spread to normal green sawlogs. That separation will become increasingly difficult, however, if mills can substitute significant volumes of usable fire-damaged logs for conventional supply.<\/p>\n The economic environment adds another constraint. Diesel and off-road fuel costs are high, salvage operations need to be organised rapidly before wetter autumn weather makes access more difficult, and the loss of Fibre Excellence has removed an important buyer just when the volume of material requiring an outlet has surged.<\/p>\n The events of 2026 also cast January's cancellation of the Swiss Krono project in Lot-et-Garonne in a different light. The planned plant, located close to the Landes forest resource, was intended to produce approximately 600,000 m\u00b3\/year of OSB<\/strong>.<\/p>\n At full operation, it would have required close to 1 million m\u00b3 of wood annually<\/strong>, including a substantial proportion of maritime pine. The project was abandoned before the storms and fires transformed the regional supply situation.<\/p>\n The coincidence is striking. Southern France now has several million cubic metres of additional timber requiring outlets, while an industrial project capable of consuming close to 1 million m\u00b3 annually will not be built. The proposed OSB plant would not have solved the immediate salvage problem, and its specifications would not have allowed every damaged assortment to be used, but its absence reduces the future industrial demand base available to the region.<\/p>\n Combined with the difficulties at Fibre Excellence, the cancellation highlights a structural issue that extends beyond the immediate consequences of storms and fires: maintaining sufficient industrial processing capacity to absorb the forest resource under both normal and exceptional harvesting conditions.<\/p>\n The immediate downside risk remains concentrated in small-diameter timber, pulpwood and downgraded fire- or storm-damaged assortments. These are the products facing the largest increase in supply and the greatest loss of industrial demand.<\/p>\n The more important question for the wider European timber market is whether the surplus eventually reaches normal maritime pine sawlogs. Before the fire, the evidence suggested that this had not yet happened. Second-quarter ONF prices were lower year-on-year, but the declines remained moderate.<\/p>\n The scale of the July fire makes the second half of the year much less predictable. If a significant share of burned timber remains suitable for lumber production, sawmills could obtain a temporary alternative to normal green-log purchases. If most of the material is downgraded, pressure will instead become even more concentrated in an industrial-wood market that already lacks sufficient outlets.<\/p>\n Speed will determine part of the outcome. Burned and windthrown timber cannot simply be treated as additional inventory that can remain in the forest indefinitely. Sanitary risks, timber degradation, access conditions and the economics of salvage logging all encourage rapid mobilisation.<\/p>\n Southern France is therefore entering the autumn with an unusual timber-market imbalance: an abundance of urgent salvage supply alongside scarcity and high prices for particular qualities of fresh sawlogs<\/strong>. The two conditions can coexist because the additional millions of cubic metres are not automatically interchangeable with the timber demanded by individual mills.<\/p>\n The consequences are unlikely to remain entirely within Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Occitanie. Several million cubic metres of salvage timber can alter transport patterns, industrial procurement and cross-regional trade, particularly if local mills cannot absorb the available volume quickly enough.<\/p>\n The first pressure is likely to remain regional because transport costs limit the economic radius of low-value industrial wood. Higher-value sawlogs have a much greater potential trading radius, making any substantial price correction more relevant for neighbouring French regions and potentially for northern Spain.<\/p>\n For the European market, southern France is also another example of a problem becoming increasingly visible across the forest sector: timber availability and industrial capacity are becoming geographically mismatched. In parts of northern Europe, sawmills are reducing production because logs are expensive and difficult to secure. Southern France suddenly faces the opposite problem \u2014 an exceptional volume requiring rapid harvesting while important industrial outlets have disappeared.<\/p>\n The remainder of 2026 will show whether the Landes industry can absorb the salvage volume without transmitting a severe price correction from industrial wood into the green sawlog market. For now, the strongest pressure is clearly at the lower end of the assortment spectrum.<\/p>\n Southern France is facing an exceptional accumulation of damaged timber after two February storms and a destructive summer fire season, with an estimated 6\u20137 million m\u00b3 of maritime pine alone now potentially entering the market. The supply shock comes as … Continue reading \n\n
\n \nAverage log volume<\/th>\n Q4 2023<\/th>\n Q2 2024<\/th>\n Q2 2025<\/th>\n Q2 2026<\/th>\n YoY change<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n \n 0.50 m\u00b3<\/strong><\/td>\n \u20ac38\/m\u00b3<\/td>\n \u20ac40\/m\u00b3<\/td>\n \u20ac44\/m\u00b3<\/td>\n \u20ac42\/m\u00b3<\/strong><\/td>\n -4.5%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 0.75 m\u00b3<\/strong><\/td>\n \u20ac41\/m\u00b3<\/td>\n \u20ac45\/m\u00b3<\/td>\n \u20ac49\/m\u00b3<\/td>\n \u20ac47\/m\u00b3<\/strong><\/td>\n -4.1%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 1.00 m\u00b3<\/strong><\/td>\n \u20ac52\/m\u00b3<\/td>\n \u20ac53\/m\u00b3<\/td>\n \u20ac57\/m\u00b3<\/td>\n \u20ac53\/m\u00b3<\/strong><\/td>\n -7.0%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 1.25 m\u00b3<\/strong><\/td>\n \u20ac54\/m\u00b3<\/td>\n \u20ac55\/m\u00b3<\/td>\n \u20ac57\/m\u00b3<\/td>\n \u20ac56\/m\u00b3<\/strong><\/td>\n -1.8%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 1.50 m\u00b3<\/strong><\/td>\n \u20ac56\/m\u00b3<\/td>\n \u20ac57\/m\u00b3<\/td>\n \u20ac62\/m\u00b3<\/td>\n \u20ac61\/m\u00b3<\/strong><\/td>\n -1.6%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 1.75 m\u00b3<\/strong><\/td>\n \u20ac56\/m\u00b3<\/td>\n \u20ac57\/m\u00b3<\/td>\n \u20ac61\/m\u00b3<\/td>\n \u20ac60\/m\u00b3<\/strong><\/td>\n -1.6%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 2.00 m\u00b3<\/strong><\/td>\n \u2014<\/td>\n \u20ac56\/m\u00b3<\/td>\n \u20ac62\/m\u00b3<\/td>\n \u20ac59\/m\u00b3<\/strong><\/td>\n -4.8%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n