While it’s business as usual at our Tuan QLD mill, at Tumbarumba NSW, we’re fine-tuning how we use salvaged log to produce our full product range.

Hyne Timber team members at Tumbarumba are proud of the fact that they work at the biggest sawmill in the southern hemisphere. The mill, thanks to the dedication of local volunteers, survived the fires completely intact.

With tens of thousands of hectares of nearby pine plantation burned, our highly-experienced team is now adjusting our operations and equipment to use salvaged log. These salvaged logs are burned on the outside but, they are expertly selected from the forests on the basis that they contain high-quality usable timber inside. We can produce all our grades of timber out of these logs.

“It is still great timber on the inside ­- most definitely - and we know that we have done this before and we can do it again”. Says Rachael Armistead our General Manager Supply.

This Nine News Wagga story explains our approach and challenges. It aired on 29th January 2020. The reporter Will Murray presents the facts very well.

Rest assured, we’ll be producing the same products we’ve always produced. We are fortunate that our equipment and mill set up are flexible and have the capability to extract our usual grades of timber product from different sizes of log.

In business since 1882, our team has produced high-quality products from salvage log in the past.

“Our focus is on the salvaged log. Keeping that going as long as we can and keeping the non-impacted trees on the stump as long as we can so then we can process them afterwards.” said Rachael Armistead.

Listed as a critical asset during the emergency, the Tumbarumba Mill was “locked down” and secured by the Rural Fire Service. The mill is intact but admittedly, it was eerie during this time to see only fire trucks and smoky air patrol past our normally bustling gate house.

Today, everyone in the Tumbarumba community, shares our relief and excitement at seeing and hearing those b double trucks bringing in the logs and leaving town loaded with packs of timber for our customers.