Guides
Public timber sales, explained
How the numbers on this site work: what stumpage is, how public timber auctions run, the MBF and CCF units, how to read a sale packet, and what bidder counts and premiums tell you. Each guide is built on the same live board as the rest of the site, so the examples are real and current.
Timber sale basics
What is stumpage?
The stumpage definition is a short one: stumpage is the price of standing timber, the trees still on the stump before anyone cuts them. In a public timber sale the buyer pays the agency for the right to cut and haul the marked trees, and the winning price per MBF or CCF is the headline stumpage number this site tracks.
How public timber auctions work
A public timber auction runs in a fixed order: the agency cruises and appraises the tract, advertises it with a sale packet, takes sealed or oral bids at or above the appraised minimum, and awards it to the high bidder. Washington DNR and BLM sell in MBF and the Forest Service in CCF, and each publishes its results in its own place.
How stumpage is appraised
Stumpage is appraised before a sale is advertised, and the appraised value becomes the minimum bid. Methods differ by agency: Oregon works residually from mill pond value minus logging cost, and the Forest Service runs transaction evidence appraisal against a published base index. Washington and Montana set an appraised value the winning bid has to clear by statute.
What does successful bidder mean at a public timber sale?
At a public timber sale the successful bidder is the bidder the agency awards the contract to, which is usually but not automatically the high bidder. Between the bid opening and the signed contract the agency accepts the bid, checks the bidder and collects deposits and bonds, and the terms high bidder, apparent high bidder, successful bidder and purchaser mark those steps.
How log prices differ from stumpage prices
A delivered log price is what a mill pays for cut logs at its yard, per MBF of log scale by species and grade, while a stumpage price is what the standing timber sold for at auction. The gap covers logging, hauling and the buyer's margin, and on one Oregon state sale in September 2026 it came to $126.21 per MBF.
How Washington DNR timber sale auctions work
Washington DNR sells state trust-land timber by sealed bid at a monthly auction, Tuesday through Thursday at its region offices, after posting each sale's notice, maps, draft contract and cruise online. A monthly results sheet then lists each sale's minimum, high bid, price per MBF, bid count and apparent high bidder.
Reading the numbers
What is an MBF?
MBF means one thousand board feet, the unit both lumber and standing timber are measured and priced in, and a board foot is a piece of wood an inch thick and a foot square. State timber sells by the MBF and Forest Service timber by the CCF, a hundred cubic feet, two units this site never averages together.
Reading a timber sale packet
A timber sale packet lists the fields that decide whether a tract is worth bidding: the offered volume by species, the appraised minimum, the road and access conditions, the logging system the ground demands, and the contract term. This site pulls the handful that describe the sale as a market event and leaves the operational detail in the full packet where a buyer bids from it.
Bid intensity: what bidder counts tell you
Bid intensity is how hard buyers competed for a tract, read from two numbers together: how many bidders showed up and how far the winning bid ran over the appraised minimum. A crowded sale at a big premium means real demand, a lone bidder at the floor or a no-bid sale means little, and no single agency publishes the two across sales.
What happens if only one bidder shows up at a timber auction?
If only one bidder shows up at a public timber auction, the sale usually still goes ahead: one bid at or above the appraised minimum is valid, and the lone bidder wins at the price it offered. What a single bidder changes is the price, because nobody bids it up, so single-bidder sales on this site's board close far nearer their minimum than contested ones.
Timber price per ton vs per MBF: how the units differ
A timber price per ton is dollars per ton of log weight, while a price per MBF is dollars per thousand board feet, a log-rule estimate of the lumber in the logs. The tons in an MBF change with species, log size and moisture, so a per-ton rate converts to a per-MBF rate only with a factor built for that same timber.
Programs and markets
Federal vs state timber: how the programs differ
Federal and state timber programs sell for different reasons, which is why their sales are not directly comparable. Washington DNR sells state trust-land timber to fund schools and counties, the Forest Service sells national-forest timber under a multiple-use mandate, and BLM sells western Oregon O&C timber under a 1937 sustained-yield law, with state and BLM sales scaled in MBF and Forest Service sales in CCF.
Species and price: why Douglas-fir isn't ponderosa
A tract's species mix drives its value more than its raw volume, because each species feeds a different end market at a different price. Douglas-fir anchors the Pacific Northwest structural-lumber market and usually carries the region's strongest stumpage, while ponderosa pine, hemlock and the rest sell into their own markets at their own levels.
From auction to mill: the timber supply chain
Between the winning bid and the mill deck sit four steps, the award, the logging, the haul and the scale at the mill, and each takes a cut of what the timber is worth. Haul distance is the heavy one, because a long road to the nearest mill eats the residual that becomes stumpage, which is why the same tract draws different bidders depending on who is close.