Timber prices never saw the huge increase because the sawmills could never increase production during covid. Today they are still having a hard time hiring enough people to work in the sawmills.
There has been plenty of timber available for the sawmills.
The Dixie fire salvage has flooded the northern california timber market with logs... to the point our firm could not sell burned timber from our clients lands. Even the large companies cannot sell wood as Sierra Pacific owns virtually all of the sawmills and they are flooded with their own wood, so Sierra Pacific is not buying logs from outside sources.
There is no shortage of logs, there is a shortage of sawmills.