As the inferno spread, Working on Fire kept close tabs on the fire fighters, including helicopters scooping water in ‘bambie-bags’ to drop over the flames, making every attempt to curtail the extent of the damage. For timber truck transporters, the fires have called for strategic adjustments to business plans…
	Photographs courtesy Hennie Homann and Lowveld Media

According to news reports, many of the runaway fires that ravaged parts of Mpumulanga, Kwa-Zulu Natal and Swaziland in early August this year were started by discarded cigarette butts. While ten people lost their lives in the fires, including six firefighters, over 40 000 hectares of cultivated timber went up in flames, sending shock waves throughout the entire timber, paper and pulp supply chain, including truck transport operations, writes Paul Collings. 

Timber transport by truck has always been a risky enterprise, requiring 24/7 operations to feed log-hungry saw mills. Generally, timber plantations in South Africa are situated in mountainous country, making it necessary for fleets to be equipped with rugged on/off-road trucks and trailers. While rain, mud, truck-pounding log-loading machines and fatigued drivers regularly threaten the smooth workings of the supply chain, fire is the timber industry's arch enemy.

The fact that trees take several years to reach the stage where they can be effectively processed by the timber, paper and pulp industries means that strategic planting, maintenance and harvesting has to be executed by forestry management. Despite strict policies, procedures and fire trucks at the ready, the recent runaway fires experienced at forestry reserves at Graskop, Piggs Peak, Sabie and Machadodorp have effectively changed the way timber transporters will work for the foreseeable future.

A charred surplus
According to Andrew Chandler, operations manager at Masakhane Forestry, "there is now a massive stockpile of burnt timber that needs to be trucked to 'wet decks' to be salvaged. As a result, there is a shortage of short-haul timber trucks and operators and contractors have to subcontract to meet the demand."

This may sound like good news for transporters but as Unitran's Robbie Stephenson explains: "While we have had to expand our fleet to handle more burnt timber, the long-term scenario is problematic. This current need for more trucks will stop in a year or so and we expect major timber shortages in the next three to seven years as a direct consequence of these fires, affecting not only transporters, but harvesters and silviculturalists."

While large timber transport fleets are able to withstand sudden fluctuations in demand for more vehicles, smaller operators find themselves in a tricky situation, says Dave Croxon, sales manager at MAN Truck and Bus, Nelspruit. "Staying in the game means employing more vehicles. Sometimes, purchasing new trucks is the only option. When demand decreases, as it will in this case by the end of next year, these smaller operators will have to sell these vehicles, quite possibly not realising a satisfactory return on investment. They have a bleak future ahead of them."

With a number of saw mills destroyed in the fires and the need to transport the burnt logs to wet decks means operators have to change their fundamental logistics planning, says Luke Voegt, Unitran's depot manager at Piggs Peak. "Once the surplus has been dispatched, we will have to look for other markets to keep our fleet busy and any trucks standing will be absorbed into other Unitrans applications."

Fleet of foot
It is clear to see that a whole lot can change when fires ravage timber plantations. Transport operators who survive do so because they are able to adapt to the almost instantaneous change in demand. "It's about having contingency plans to help weather the storm," says Chandler. "Preventing your operation from being 'burnt' beyond repair requires experience, and a cool head too."