By Andrew de Vries, Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Forest Owners
Canada is being forced to rethink its relationship with wildfire. The fires burning across the country are no longer an occasional disruption to the forest sector. They are becoming a defining economic, environmental and community challenge.
In 2026, wildfire activity accelerated dramatically through June and July, with more than three million hectares burned by early August and the vast majority of that area accumulating in just five weeks. In British Columbia, rapidly expanding fires have forced tens of thousands of people from their homes. (World Weather Attribution)
At the same time, Canada is confronting another challenge: how to secure enough fibre to keep mills operating, attract investment and sustain the rural communities that depend on forestry. These two issues are connected. And they point to one of Canada’s most underused forest-sector assets: its private working forests.
When Mark Carney announced the Canadian Forest Sector Transformation Task Force in November 2025, Canadian Forest Owners (CFO) saw an opportunity to challenge the traditional boundaries of Canada’s forest policy. When we presented to the Task Force in February and submitted our recommendations in March, our message was straightforward: Canada cannot build a stronger, more competitive and more resilient forest sector while leaving privately managed forests at the margins.
The Task Force’s final report, delivered to Minister Tim Hodgson in April and released publicly in June, represented an important step forward. It identified approximately 480,000 private forest owners managing about 25 million hectares of private forest, generating more than $14 billion in revenue and supporting nearly 40,000 jobs. It also described this resource as “underappreciated and underleveraged.” That recognition matters. But wildfire is showing us why recognition must quickly become action.
Wildfire changes the equation
For decades, forest policy has largely been organized around ownership: Crown forests or private forests. Wildfire makes that distinction increasingly irrelevant. Fire does not stop at a property line. Neither do drought, insects, disease or extreme weather. A fire moving through a landscape can threaten a private woodlot, a Crown forest, a community, a mill and critical infrastructure in the same event. The policy response needs to reflect that reality.
Canada’s 2026 wildfire season is already reinforcing concerns that extreme fire seasons are becoming more frequent and severe. (World Weather Attribution) The answer cannot simply be to fight bigger fires with more resources after they start. We also need to reduce the risk before ignition and improve the resilience of the forests and communities exposed to it.
Private forest owners have a role to play.
Active forest management can create opportunities to address hazardous fuels, improve stand health, maintain access roads and build resilience. Yet private owners have not had the same access to wildfire mitigation programs and investments available to public land managers. That needs to change.
Expanding FireSmart and other forest-resilience initiatives to private working forests would not simply benefit individual landowners. It would contribute to landscape-level wildfire management, protect communities, reduce future fibre losses and strengthen the resilience of Canada’s forest economy. In other words, investing in private forests can also be an investment in community safety and resilience.
Wildfire is also a fibre problem
Wildfire makes the fibre challenge even more urgent. Canada’s forest sector needs a predictable and competitive supply of wood. Yet Crown fibre is facing increasing pressures from wildfire, conservation measures, insects, changing forest conditions and other constraints.
Private forests already represent a significant and widespread source of fibre. They are managed by hundreds of thousands of landowners across rural Canada and are closely connected to local mills, contractors, truckers, forestry professionals and communities.
The Task Force acknowledges that privately managed Canadian forests can produce dramatically more timber per hectare than publicly managed forests. They are already growing, already being managed and already contributing to Canada’s forest economy. This is not a future resource waiting to be created. It is an existing resource that can contribute more. The question is whether Canada will create the conditions for that to happen.
The missing ingredient is investment
The biggest challenge facing private forestry is not necessarily willingness. It is economics. Forest ownership operates on a very different financial cycle from most businesses. A landowner may invest for decades in roads, thinning, regeneration and stand improvement before receiving significant income from a harvest. When that income arrives, it can be concentrated in a single year, creating a tax burden that reduces the capital available for reinvestment.
CFO has proposed a Personal Silvicultural Savings and Investment Plan, or PSSIP, to address this problem. The principle is simple: allow forest owners to defer and reinvest a portion of forestry income so that more of the money generated by the forest remains working in the forest.
That means more silviculture, better forest renewal, healthier stands and greater future fibre supply. It can also mean greater resilience. A forest that is actively managed, renewed and invested in is better positioned to withstand the pressures facing it, including wildfire.
From recognition to action
The federal government has now launched a Forest Sector Action Plan focused on securing competitive and predictable fibre, attracting investment and innovation, expanding markets, and supporting workers and communities. Federal, provincial and territorial ministers are working toward a broader Forest Sector Strategy by the end of 2026.
This is the opportunity. Private forests need to be built into that strategy as an essential component of Canada’s forest future. That means access to wildfire mitigation and resilience programs. These measures alone will not solve Canada’s forest-sector challenges. But together, they can unlock a resource that has been underappreciated for too long. Private forest owners are already investing, managing, harvesting, regenerating and supporting rural communities. They are already part of Canada’s forest economy. Increasingly, they also need to be part of Canada’s wildfire resilience strategy.
One of Canada’s most important forest-sector opportunities has been hiding in plain sight. It is time to put private forests where they belong: not on the sidelines of Canada’s forest strategy, but at the table as an essential long-term partner in securing Canada’s future fibre supply and building a more wildfire-resilient Canada.