Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Firewood Gurus Experience

Been burning firewood all my life. Grew up on the Oregon coast burning alder and Douglas fir mostly. A little maple and cherry when availability. Moved to the valley several years ago and am using a pellet stove. Now we are in the process of getting a small second home with a small wood stove. This last freezing rain dropped lot of red oak. I have unlimited access and have a few questions. We want to keep the wood extra clean so I am splitting the sapwood and bark off. ( some of the trees are 3 foot or bigger) We have an outside fire pit for burning that. I cut and split some oak a couple years ago and it has been out of the weather. Very heavy yet but it appears the sapwood is punky. How wood you compare lake to fir and alder? Also lots of ash available. Does oak’s sapwood rot quickly?

I am your Firewood Guru. Love to burn red oak. If I had pristine red oak I would never cut the sapwood off. Red oak sapwood burns great it is inconceivable to me to split it off.

If red oak has been on the ground for several years I would not be surprised if the sapwood was getting rotten. In this case I would either split it off, or else, not use it at all.
I don't put rotten wood in my wood shed.

in my experience red oak does not last as long as white oak. you need to get red oak cut, split, stacked and covered in the first year or so or it starts to go bad. white oak on the other hand can lay in log form on the ground for 10 years and still be prime burning wood aside from the first inch or so of outside. i love white oak but burn a lot of both thanks to the gypsy moths.

In my 35 years of splitting and burning wood, I have found red oak and locust to be the longest lasting firewood. Ash and maple are the worse, for hard woods.

Red oak is excellent firewood. But it does need split, stacked and covered to keep from rotting. White oak does last longer with out rotting and burns just as well. Both produce good beds of coals. But locust and osage orange, are better in my opinon. Both burn very hot and last longer than oak in the stove.

Oak and locust rank above all else maple ash hickory and elm 2nd paradise believe it or not is good also

Lots of woods equal or better than oak and locust, depending on the parameters...
Lots of BTUs in madrone and no other wood leaves so little ash... and it is in the OP's locale.
"Maple" encompasses a huge variety of trees with very different burn characteristics. Many are outstanding.
Locust is miserable to split...

Don’t ever burn softwood in the fireplace. Oak, hickory and magnolia on occasion. I don’t ever leave cut wood unsheltered or in contact with the ground.

Red Oak has to dry 4 years.

you are in a lot wetter country than I am used to .

I cut mine, split it, and stack it on pallets (to keep it off the ground. I tarp it in the winter, and for a month in summer (july when it rains)

Our air is so dry, it dries/cures fast.

In west side Oregon, you probably need it in a shed, or at least under a roof.

Red oak, post oak, white oak and hickory make fine low ash, high heat, long burn firewood, anything over thigh size gets the maul.

Sweetgum burns Hot.

That is all.

I'd rather have the red oak than the juniper I burn, but both are better than pine.

I burned a lot of alder, Doug fir, big leaf maple, and tanbark oak when I lived on the coast. All of them serviceable for my needs.

I’m not a fan of red oak at my place in NY. Takes two years to season so I give it all to my brother for his outdoor boiler. It also doesn’t really last that long in a wood pile either. Starts to rot after two years. Hard maple, ash and cherry are all nice for the fireplace but I can be extra picky.

Oak is about all we'll burn where I'm at. Never any softwood, I've been told it'll soot up your fireplace but I've never burned any. If we happen to have a dead pecan tree we'll burn it but mostly when you say firewood you mean oak around here. Red oak is more common, but white oak when we find it is used also.

Sweetgum can be burned also but takes forever to dry and you can't split it. When it is dry it weighs nothing and burns too quick for my use, it's like burning paper.