Four years after the forest fires in Val di Susa, on the border between Italy and France, local cooperative La Foresta is mobilizing to reduce the damage to the forest by making use of wood in all its forms.
By Martina Valentini
Witnesses remember the days of the fires as an "apocalypse" with darkness, smoke and flames threatening their homes. Four years after the fires hit Val di Susa, residents of Mompantero, one of the epicenters of the disaster, are still reliving the events of that night. The rapid evacuation and the agonizing feelings are still hard to put into words. When the last fires were extinguished at the end of October 2017, the mountain showed its wounds through thousands of hectares of burnt trees, a huge amount of fallen timber, the danger of new fires and the high risk of soil erosion.
In short, the situation was critical. But the inhabitants of this beautiful valley on the outskirts of Turin were not resigned. Mobilization and hard work have always been part of their lives. Today, the affected area is recovering and the natural disaster is turning into an opportunity for best practice in sustainable development.
Saving raw materials and reducing waste
"In order to prevent new fires, we had to remove much of the fallen wood immediately," explains Giorgio Talacini, a member of La Foresta di Susa cooperative. "At the same time, we started erosion control work using some of this wood. This allowed us to start the smartest possible strategy - the prevention strategy. It is essential to prevent emergencies - it costs less than eliminating the consequences and, most importantly, the forest is preserved."
The cooperative works successfully in two ways, making maximum use of wood raw materials and significantly reducing wood waste. Both objectives are achieved with the Wood-Mizer thin-cutting saw technology. At the sorting yard, La Foresta operators select the logs and distribute them according to their characteristics. Here the logs are cut to the desired length. From the forest, which covers more than 200 hectares, the wood is transported about 15 km to the town of Susa, where it is sorted. The noble parts are sent to the sawmill and the less valuable material is used to produce wood chips. "With the Wood-Mizer sawmill, we can make the most of the wood harvested after the fire," explains Talachini. "The highest quality wood is used to make furniture, tables and chairs or to create interior elements."
LT40 saw helps reduce wood waste
The main woodworking machine is the Wood-Mizer LT40 Wood-Mizer bandsaw, which can offer high output and withstand long working hours. The saw can cut logs up to 90 centimeters in diameter and over eight and a half meters long. In addition, the saw offers high cutting accuracy with minimal sawdust produced. The saw is equipped with a Setworks electronic blade adjustment device to quickly produce the required thickness of plank and a water tank for lubricating the blade to keep it clean during the cut. The thin-cut plank is only 2 mm thick; therefore, more planks and less sawdust are produced from each log, a fact appreciated by the cooperative, as attention has always been paid to the economical use of valuable wood raw materials. "Our job is to create finished wood products, and the sawdust produced is sent on to be used for bioenergy," says Talachini. "In this way, we achieve waste-free production."
La Foresta and Wood-Mizer: working together for a common future
Cooperativa La Foresta in Val di Susa has been operating since 1995 serving the local infrastructure, mainly in disadvantaged areas that can only be reached by special means of transportation such as cable cars, excavators and helicopters. The main focus of the work is sustainable forest management, achieved through quality standards, the use of high-efficiency equipment with low levels of waste and proper operator training. And Wood-Mizer has been supporting La Foresta for 15 years.
"We chose a Wood-Mizer saw after evaluating a wide range of alternative technologies. After many years of cooperation, we are satisfied with the machine's excellent performance, after-sales service and the opportunity offered, thanks to our relationship with the company and our desire to always be up to date with new market trends," says Talachini. "Our collaboration continues to grow. We recently purchased a Wood-Mizer planing/profiling machine for secondary wood processing."
The importance of adding product value
The use of quality equipment - Talachini believes - is the key to thriving in a market where product improvement is becoming fundamental. In recent months, the business has been hit by a strong upward trend in prices that has swept the commodity market, reaching an all-time record price of more than 600 euros per cubic meter of timber. The trend eased in September, leaving room for a price correction. But experience shows that cost volatility is always a potential pitfall for small companies. "Increasing product value is fundamental," concludes Talachini. "We operate locally but have to deal with prices that are determined globally. Therefore, we need to create more added value so that the cooperative can grow and sell successfully.
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