Loggers and timber buyers in Minnesota's border country agree that in the face of changing weather patterns and stronger storms, land managers must move more quickly to sell damaged timber, according to a story in the International Falls Daily Journal.

The comments came as Koochiching County officials prepare to auction 25,000 cords of timber blown down by a windstorm in July.

While wood buyers welcomed the Nov. 14 auction, they said getting at it earlier would have assured better logging conditions and better quality wood. Given the apparent likelihood of more frequent strong storms in the future, they urged the county to develop a system for quickly assessing blowdowns and offering the damaged trees at a discount.

"When it happens again, we need to jump on it," Ken Olson, a forester for Boise Inc., told the County Board, according to the newspaper. "The logging community needs incentives to get to the wood quicker. This (kind of harvesting) takes a lot of time, so there has to be a break on stumpage."

County Land Commissioner Dennis Hummitzsch agreed a quicker response is needed, noting that the magnitude of the July blowdown was unprecedented.

The Journal's complete story is here.