How Washington DNR timber sale auctions work

Washington DNR sells state trust-land timber by sealed bid at a monthly auction that runs Tuesday through Thursday at its region offices, after posting each sale's notice of sale, maps, draft contract, cruise and road plan as a packet online. After the auction it posts a results sheet with every sale's minimum, high bid, price per MBF, bid count and apparent high bidder, plus a record of every bid received.

The steps all public timber auctions share are in how public timber auctions work. This is the Washington DNR version, document by document.

When and where DNR holds its auctions

DNR's timber auction packets page says auctions generally fall on the last Tuesday through Thursday of the month, but the published dates move: the 2026 rounds included May 19-21, June 9-11 and September 22-24. Northeast and South Puget Sound sell on Tuesday, Northwest and Olympic on Wednesday, Pacific Cascade and Southeast on Thursday.

Each sale is held at the region office named on its notice, between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. (RCW 79.15.070). Bids go in the bid box before 10 a.m. on auction day, or reach the region office by mail by 4:30 p.m. on the last business day before. Auctions are hybrid, in person or over Teams, but a bid is a signed paper form in a sealed envelope; DNR's bidding forms page says forms "may not be submitted electronically."

From preview to packet

Drafts can surface months ahead on DNR's early timber sale previews page, "preliminary and subject to change." The Board of Natural Resources approves sales about six weeks before auction, per DNR's bidding procedures. Each month's auction book, with every notice of sale and map, and a packet for each sale go up on the upcoming timber auctions page, then move to previous timber auctions.

A packet holds draft copies of "the timber notice of sale, map, contract, road plan, cruise data, precruise and cruise narrative, and other associated documents." The two-page notice of sale summarizes the rest: volume by species and grade, minimum bid, bid method, bid deposit, performance security, sale type, expiration date, export allocation, harvest method, roads and fees. The statute requires it to state the place, date, time and appraised value (RCW 79.15.080) and makes the advertisement "for informational purposes only" (RCW 79.15.090), so bidders cruise for themselves. Field by field, see reading a timber sale packet; for the minimum, how stumpage is appraised.

How bidding works at DNR

DNR's procedures say "All timber will be auctioned using the sealed bid method," so there is no oral round. Each envelope holds the signed bid form and the bid deposit set on the notice, in cash, certified or cashier's check, money order or a bid bond. Bidders must be licensed to do business in Washington and eligible to bid on export restricted timber, and a $150,000 statewide bid bond, if used, and the list of authorized representatives must reach DNR ten days before the auction.

Bids are opened in auction book order, by county and agreement number, and a tie goes to a drawing from a hat. On stumpage sales the apparent high bidder has two minutes to withdraw its bids on sales still to be opened. By 4:30 p.m. it brings its deposit up to 10 percent of its total bid (25 percent for a defaulter), at least $5,000 on a lump sum sale, per the procedures and the 2026 sealed bid form instructions. Confirmation and the contract are covered in what successful bidder means; the deposit as an opening bid and the lone-bidder case, in when only one bidder shows up.

Lump sum, scale and sort sales

The statute defines a lump sum sale as having "a single total price applying to all the material conveyed" and a scale sale as one "offered with per unit prices to be applied to the material conveyed" (RCW 79.15.100). A lump sum price holds whatever is cut: Reflection's draft contract says the purchase price "shall not be affected" by the volume actually present or removed.

Sort sales come from DNR's contract harvesting program (RCW 79.15.500). The state's contractor processes the trees into "logs sorted by department specifications," and DNR sells each sort by separate sealed bid, as a delivered price at a location the bidder names, with the award waiting on DNR's haul cost analysis. The Belty Sorts 7 & 8 notice set delivered minimums of $950 and $350 per MBF; neither sort drew a bid on September 24, 2026. A delivered log price is not stumpage, so this site lists sorts with salvage, deck and product sales, outside its sawtimber figures.

Export restricted timber

Each notice carries an allocation line, and Reflection's reads "Export Restricted." Washington's log export rules (chapter 240-15 WAC), which carry out the federal Forest Resources Conservation and Shortage Relief Act of 1990, have each public agency designate its sales export restricted or exportable (WAC 240-15-020), bar exporting that timber unprocessed (WAC 240-15-015) and keep the hammer brands and red paint on the logs until domestic processing (WAC 240-15-025). DNR's contract says export restricted products "shall not be exported until processed."

The results sheet and unsold sales

DNR files results on its timber auction results page by state fiscal year, July through June. Each month gets a results sheet (pslts2609results.pdf for September 2026) and bid records (pslts2609bids.pdf) that list every bidder and amount. The sheet splits board sales, approved by the Board of Natural Resources, from region sales, approved by a region manager, and gives each sale's agreement number, county, region, volume offered in MBF, minimum bid, bid price, percent over, price per MBF, number of bids and apparent high bidder. Summary blocks total the month and fiscal year to date, sort sales get their own table, and federal Good Neighbor Authority sales DNR runs have a separate list.

Sales that drew no bids can appear on DNR's unsold timber sales page, "typically available to be bid on at their minimum appraised value during the next scheduled auction." A board minimum lasts 180 days unless extended by resolution (RCW 79.15.060), so an older one may be reappraised first, and a no-bid sale may be reoffered (RCW 79.15.150). September 2026 closed that loop twice: Elk Mill, unsold in July at $1,850,000, sold on a $1,420,000 reoffer for $1,527,758.50, and Bakers Dozen, unsold in August at $554,000, sold on a $415,000 reoffer for $416,228.

One month, one sale: September 2026

DNR's September 2026 results sheet counts 11 sales offered and 8 sold: five of six board sales (the 103 MBF Belty Sorts reoffer drew no bids) and three of five region sales (Raw Bin Hood and Q Dead End drew none). The eight sold sales took 27,267 MBF for $6,261,329.79 against $5,218,000 in minimums: by DNR's figures, $229.63 per MBF, 20 percent over and 2.13 bids per sale.

The month's largest bid was for Reflection, a 214-acre lump sum sale near Amboy in Clark County, auctioned September 24, 2026 at the Pacific Cascade Region office in Castle Rock. Its notice of sale listed:

• 6,526 MBF estimated, 5,842 MBF of it Douglas-fir
• a minimum bid of $2,305,000.00, sealed bids only
• a bid deposit of $230,500.00 or a bid bond, 10 percent of the minimum, which "shall constitute an opening bid at the appraised price"
• $100,000 of performance security, plus fees of $150,100 due on sale day and $12 per MBF on removal, on top of the bid
• a contract expiration of October 31, 2028 and an Export Restricted allocation

Four sealed bids came in, from $2,405,000 to $2,897,628 (bid record). Interfor U.S. Timber, Inc. was the apparent high bidder at $2,897,628.00, $126,509.97 over the next bid of $2,771,118.03. The arithmetic:

• Price per MBF: $2,897,628 / 6,526 MBF = $444.01
• Minimum per MBF: $2,305,000 / 6,526 MBF = $353.20
• Premium: ($2,897,628 - $2,305,000) / $2,305,000 = $592,628 / $2,305,000 = 25.7 percent, shown as 26% on DNR's sheet
• Initial deposit due by 4:30 p.m. that day: 10 percent of $2,897,628 = $289,762.80

Volumes are in MBF as DNR prints them, and $444.01 is a lump sum bid spread over a cruise estimate, not a scaled price. This site's Pacific Cascade Region page carries the same row: Sep 2026, Clark, 6,526 MBF, $2,305,000 minimum, $2,897,628 winning bid, $444/MBF, +26%, 4 bidders, Interfor U.S. Timber, Inc.

Following DNR's auctions on this site

The auction calendar carries WA DNR's upcoming docket, each sale with its auction date, region, county, offered volume and minimum.

After the auction, results land on the region pages, Olympic, Northwest, Pacific Cascade, South Puget Sound, Northeast and Southeast, with the sheet's minimum, winning bid, price per MBF, premium, bid count and high bidder, dated by auction month as DNR reports it. The board adds a completed sales by month table across every tracked agency and a no-bid table of sales that drew no bids in the last 24 months and whether they came back.