MYRTLE POINT - Bob Mahaffy surveys his 300-acre property, dense with Douglas and grand fir, as a saw's buzz peals through the forest.

He plans to clear about 2 million board feet - about 400 truckloads of felled timber - within two to three months to cash in on a hot log-export market.

He's got to get while the getting's good.

"I don't expect it to last as long as most people do," the Coos Bay resident says of China's top-dollar offerings for U.S. logs.

Coos County has a pretty good customer in China at the moment. The country's seemingly insatiable appetite for timber is stirring a bit of a frenzy here as log trucks roar down roads and ships cruise overseas with Oregon Coast payloads.

"We gathered our stuff up and got out of hibernation," says Dennis Cole, of Coos Bay's Cole & Hongell Logging.

"There's a lot of people who haven't worked in two years," Mahaffy adds.

But why is China so hungry?

Building boom

Betty Liu, CEO of Virginia-based consulting firm, China U.S. Market, remembers growing up in a family of four in a one-bedroom apartment.

"That was very common in China at the time," Liu says.

That was in the 1980s.

"These days, people not only have their own bedroom for a single person, they have extra housing, like an apartment, for rent."

New homes in China essentially are shells, she explains. The buyer must cover the floors and walls, and that's partly what's driving the demand for wood.

And since Russia, a major raw-log supplier, began increasing duties on exports to encourage investment in mills, China went looking for logs elsewhere.

Trade traffic

Last summer, the Paul Bunyan was the first log ship in five years China-bound from Coos Bay.

Trade activity has continued to gain momentum.

The number of vessel calls to the Port of Coos Bay spiked from a record-low of 25 in 2009 to 39 last year.

2011 has so far seen 13 ships come to port, although it's difficult to tell how many were bound for China.

"Last year, we were back up to pre-recession levels. This year, we'll exceed that," says Elise Hamner, Oregon International Port of Coos Bay spokeswoman.

Months, years?

How long can this trend sustain itself?

Says Ingvar Doessing of North Bend's Jones Stevedoring Co.: "Fifty years, or it could be months."

In other words: It's anybody's guess.

Doessing only can wager his best estimate when he says, "Right now, there is a great demand, and I think the industry as a whole expects it to continue for several years."

Marvin Caldera, president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 12, leans more toward five years.

Caldera says the union has between 30 and 40 longshoremen helping load logs. He says he hopes to add about 25 more to help keep up with demand.

Each ship that comes to port means an estimated $1.5 million to laborers, such as longshoremen and truckers.

"That means a lot to us," Caldera says.

Costs soar

Meanwhile, domestic mills are dealing with the higher costs of materials.

Douglas fir, for example, is going for about $600 per thousand board feet. The export market is also driving up the price of historically low-value species such as hemlock, spruce and white fir, says Tristan Huff, a forestry agent with Coos County OSU Extension.

"It's raising the cost of raw materials to the point that buying logs at the current market price doesn't really pencil out," says Jason Smith, manager of Southport Forest Products.

The ramped-up harvests on large industrial forest lands leaves behind felled timber that doesn't meet export specifications. While these logs are cheaper than those bound for China, they still cost more than most mills would like to pay, Smith says.

Study up, act fast

You needn't be a major timber player to get in on the export game. Small woodland owners - those with less than 5,000 acres of non-industrial forest, like Mahaffy - comprise about 5 percent of the overall export market.

Some are selling for the first time in years now that certain tree species are fetching attractive prices.

Most local sellers are old hands at this. Newcomers to the market will have a steep learning curve ahead of them, and they'd better be quick studies. Log values don't rise nearly as fast as they fall, Huff says.

It's a notion not lost on Ron and Connie Wood. Their Myrtle Point property has some top-dollar Douglas firs they're considering selling.

When to sell, whom to sell to, and how to sell all are factors to weigh.

"There's a lot to know about this," Ron Wood says. "It seems you can make money or lose money in a matter of minutes."

Mahaffy's advice to first-time sellers: Get a consultant. And don't deliberate too long.

"If you're indecisive," he says, "you missed it."

Business Editor Nate Traylor can be reached at 541-269-1222, ext. 236; or at ntraylor@theworldlink.com.