Tuesday edition
November 3, 2026
Searsmont welcomes Lily Robbins home after months of recovery
Lily Robbins returned to Searsmont, Maine, on October 30 after five and a half months at Massachusetts General Hospital. First responders escorted her home, where family, friends and neighbors gathered at the fire station to welcome her.
Robbins, a recent University of Maine graduate and volunteer EMT, has been recovering from injuries sustained in the May 15 fire and explosion at her family’s mill, Robbins Lumber. For readers who would like to help with recovery expenses, a GoFundMe organized on her behalf is linked below.
Read Rachel Estabrook’s reporting in the Portland Press Herald
By the Numbers
Latest available observations as of 2026-11-03. Dates and comparison periods vary by series; monthly figures remain unchanged between releases.
| Indicator | Latest | Change |
|---|---|---|
| U.S. on-highway dieselEIA U.S. on-highway diesel; taxes included | US$6.35/galWeek of October 26, 2026; released October 27 | +US$0.08/gal +1.2%Versus October 19: US$6.28/gal |
| Lumber futuresJanuary 2027 lumber futures; current continuous-series contract | US$524.50/MBFNovember 2, 2026 close | Prior-week change unavailableSame January contract prior-week close not verified on November 3 |
| Madison’s lumber indexMadison’s weekly lumber index | US$459.00/MBFWeek ending October 30, 2026 | −US$36.00/MBF −7.3% (calculated)Versus week ending October 23: US$495.00/MBF |
| Hardwood lumber PPIBLS WPU0812; 1982=100; not seasonally adjusted | 285.1 index pointsSeptember 2026; released October 15 | −1.3 points −0.5%Versus August 2026: 286.4 |
| U.S. single-family housing startsCensus U.S. single-family starts; annualized estimate | 859,000 units (SAAR)September 2026; released October 20 | −41,000 units (SAAR) −4.6%Versus revised August 2026: 900,000 |
| Canadian dollarBank of Canada; Canadian dollars per U.S. dollar | C$1.40 per US$1.00Daily average, November 2, 2026 | +C$0.00 per US$1.00 +0.1%Versus October 30: C$1.40 per US$1.00 |
About these numbers
Housing starts are annualized estimates, not actual monthly units, and are subject to revision. The hardwood PPI is an index, not a dollar price. Exchange rates are daily averages. MBF means thousand board feet. The September single-family starts monthly change has a published ±10.0-percentage-point 90.0% confidence interval and is not statistically significant. The continuous lumber series now matches January 2027. Its earlier observations may reflect a different contract, so no prior-week change is reported without a verified January-contract comparison. The latest diesel release remains October 27; the next release is due November 3. Display rounding follows the approved format. Changes are calculated from unrounded observations, so rounded currency levels may look unchanged even when a small movement occurred.
Sources:
EIA U.S. on-highway diesel; taxes included
Lumber continuous series; current January 2027 close
Named January contract and settlement date
Madison’s dated weekly index
BLS WPU0812; 1982=100; not seasonally adjusted
Census U.S. single-family starts; annualized estimate
Bank of Canada; Canadian dollars per U.S. dollar
Forests & Investment
CANADA — BRITISH COLUMBIA / OCTOBER 30 CLOSING
Gillfor completes its purchase of Teal-Jones coastal operations
Gillfor Manufacturing has completed its acquisition of Teal-Jones’ Surrey, Sumas and Tree Farm Licence 46 operations. The October 30 company statement confirms that Gillfor is now the sole owner, following a September 18 British Columbia Supreme Court reverse vesting order.
The closing moves the transaction beyond the earlier court-approval stage. Gillfor says the Teal-Jones operating name and contact personnel remain unchanged, and it is working with customers, suppliers and service providers to restore normal business terms and regular services.
Excluded pre-closing claims and liabilities remain with the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act estate. The company directs claims, invoices and issues through October 30 to court-appointed monitor Ernst & Young, rather than treating them as obligations of the acquired business.
Gillfor says the transaction preserves hundreds of jobs and combines sawmilling, value-added manufacturing and distribution capabilities in western redcedar, hemlock and Douglas-fir. The announcement does not provide a mill-by-mill production timetable.
Original closing statement and instructions for pre-closing claims →
Action Detector
CANADA — NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR / APPLICATIONS EXTENDED
Communities get until November 30 to seek wildfire-planning support
Newfoundland and Labrador has extended applications for its Community Wildfire Prevention and Mitigation Program to November 30. Forestry, Agriculture and Lands Minister Pleaman Forsey confirmed the extension in a November 2 statement to the House of Assembly.
The program helps communities identify and reduce wildfire risk and plan for emergencies. The minister encouraged communities to consult the department or contact FireSmart@gov.nl.ca for application information.
The announcement concerns community applications, rather than an individual homeowner rebate or an awarded fuels-treatment contract. It comes after the official forest-fire season, with the province urging preparations for the next season to continue.
Under the Radar
CANADA — QUEBEC / TROPICAL FOREST RESEARCH
Open drone workflow brings individual tree crowns into focus
A research team led by Université de Montréal and Mila professor Étienne Laliberté is sharing an open-source workflow for close-up canopy photography. Mila’s October 28 account describes Harpia, a Python library that automates drone missions for the Kanopia forest-monitoring project.
The system first maps a forest from above, identifies individual crowns and then programs return flights for detailed images of leaves, flowers and fruits. These photographs support botanical identification and training data for species-recognition models.
The team reports photographing more than 24,000 canopy trees across Panama, Ecuador and Brazil. Pilot work on Panama’s Barro Colorado Island draws on its extensive botanical records to check identifications.
The paper appeared October 19 in Methods in Ecology and Evolution. This is a tropical-canopy research workflow; the reporting does not establish a ready-made replacement for North American field inventories or verified classification accuracy in other forest types.
Original Mila account, workflow and field context → · Original research paper and publication date →
Today's Featured Resource
Seasonal Climate Change in Vermont: County-level Monthly Temperature and Precipitation Data Compilation for the Forest Products Supply Chain, 1970–2019
This PDF report compiles historical monthly temperature and precipitation patterns for Vermont counties using NOAA data. Its tables and comparisons provide context for harvest scheduling, road and trail work, and wood procurement—not a current weather forecast.
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