Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Firewood question

I've got a good stash of firewood, but this months project is thinning out some of the woods behind us, 8" diameter or less. Some junk wood but mostly hardwood.



My question for the 'Fire is:

At what diameter do you stop keeping wood for seasoning?

Shampoo bottle size, yeti cup, wrist

but I also dont split rounds unless they are more than 18”. My Heatmor has a big door

By the way, can we have some out-west fouck refer to kindling as kenneling just to argue how superior they are for burning only conifers and never venturing further east than pocatello? And the Earff is onlee 6fth thosaunds yeer olt

Beer can size and up

Depends on how much you burn the stove . Small stuff gets used around here for camping trips , also once it starts warming up throw a couple small round pieces on the coals instead of a big fire. Usually anything under 4-5" diameter gets left unless I need some hickory for the smoker

I go with earlybrd, smaller than a beer can I leave it to rot in the woods.

Pocatello? Never heard of her.

Beer can size and up makes sense.

Used to burn wood at my cabin up north.

Pretty much followed the beer can idea.

6 yrs ago, pulled the wood stove out and went with propane.

Tough question.

With hardwoods 2” is about the minimum. My grandfather always cut everything down to 1”. My grandmother had a wood cook stove and liked what she referred to as “little round wood” if she wanted a quick, hot fire.

I burn un-split coffee can size and under... as long as there is a coal base... no need to split.

As for getting 3" brush out of the woods (to the burn pit)...

I lay out a 100' rope... throw the brush on the rope... bring 1/2 the rope OVER the brush and tie a bowline... drive away and cinch up the bundle.

Fastest way to gather up a [bleep] of sticks...

i.e. WAY EASIER than Led Zeppelin IV.

You eastern pilgrims wouldn't know Winter if it bit you in your puzzy flaps.


Nuff said, just sayin'.

I split mesquite to about 2” diameter

Is Pocatello a good place to buy salmon flavored saltwater taffy?

Or is that just a rumor.

Verylargeboots;
Good morning sir, I hope this first Sunday of the 4th month finds you well and not needing a fire.

We're getting spring here, but it was just above freezing so a fire got built before the coffee was made - once more...

Since I'm way out west and comparatively northward of many of our 'Fire folks, we can only lay awake at night and dream of having hardwood to cut for firewood.

Not to far north of us there's some Paper Birch, but there's few enough down here that I've named each of them.

Once every decade or so I'll pick up some fruit wood when an orchard is being taken out and then I'll keep stuff down to that pop can sort of size mentioned.

It seems to season okay without splitting, which is something that our "shop wood" which is usually Ponderosa Pine will not do. If it is kept, it needs to be split, down to the pop can sized stuff as well or it just won't burn well.

Not that Ponderosa burns well on a good day, or throws that much heat truly, but for the shop where I'm dressed warm and usually moving around, it does the trick.

Anyways sir, I don't believe I've come remotely close to answering your question, but if I had hardwood and further to that experience with it, I'd possibly have an answer.... possibly..

Best to you with the firewood gathering regardless, it's something I always enjoy doing and hope to for years to come.

Dwayne

only firewood I use anymore is smaller stuff. I just have the firepit in the back yard, and don't want or need any wood larger than a quart jar.

No kidding.

I stop at about 4-5". But I'm cutting soft woods like lodgepole pine and fir. When it gets down to that size, it's near the top of the tree that quickly tapers, with lots of limbs, and not worth the effort for for just a few feet.

If a section will easily fit through my stove door, it does not get split. When seasoning, most moisture wicks out of the ends and most of the shrinkage occurs along the diameter dimension. My stove door is 17" wide and about 12" inches tall (King size Blaze King) and the burn box about 24" deep (front to back). Length of my rounds is 15" and anything that's more than 10" in diameter (about the span of my extended fingers) gets split down a bit. I.e. any piece that's 15 by 10" can easily be tossed into the stove without jockeying around with some already flaming chunk. That being, I can toss in chunks that are about the size of my desktop PC. Seem to get a longer burn from the larger pieces and we really heat with wood. It's not a recreational thing.

Any section within the shed below will easily fit in the stove, and the smaller stuff is mostly there to fill in voids. There are 5 layers in the shed.



As to tree size - if I can fall, buck it up, and roll or heave it up the trailer ramp, it's coming home. Anything smaller than about 5" gets left in the woods to decay. Not worth the time. With the exception of the chopping blocks above (Ponderosa pine) the balance of the wood in both images is Western Larch. Larch can be easily split with a maul. If I were to burn pine or any of the other conifers, I'd purchase a hydraulic splitter. Pine especially, is a bear to get apart which is why it makes a great chopping block.


We are about 5 yrs worth ahead on wood with the excess stacked outside. Given we only get about 12" of precip a year and can probably evaporate five times that, it's pretty well seasoned and checked before going into the shed. We don't split much until it's going under cover for the following winter's use. Might split a little in the woods to fill in larger voids in the trailer load.

We are also blessed with the privilege of cutting standing dead or down wood in our National Forest with a limit of 5 free cords per household. We only have conifers though (2 kinds of pine, 2 firs, larch, or western juniper if one enjoys lopping limbs for most of the day). Anything in excess of 5 cords runs $5 a cord with no limit for a commercial permit. The shed holds about 3.6 cords, and we consume about 2.5 over a typical winter.

We can fall some big assed trees if they're dead. As to work in the woods - the larger the tree the quicker one can get done and out. Small diameter stuff, like lodge pole pine, takes a lot of saw time to get a load, and the top third or so is too small to bother with.

4 or 5" mostly.
I have access to too much wood to mess around with beer can size stuff.
6-8" and above I split.
It dries better, burns better.
Indoor, wood/coal furnace, thermostat draft control, natural draft(no fan).

Yeppers! I know 'zackly what winter is! That's why I live down here instead of up there!
I've gone to work in -30°F temps and waded crotch deep snow to get to a job site.

If'n YOU wanna live up there? Fine by me!
I stay down here where split red oak firewood is available and a 20°F day is a cold motor scooter!

Actually, where we live in Oklahoma, we've seen vehicle high snow drifts and -12°F temps!

P.S. - Lot'sa folks think snow is pretty! "I" don't!

Winter is milder in Montanas banana belt than it is here. While I haven't experienced temperatures below -25 here, I have experienced 4' of snow in one storm and 5" of snow on mothers day..

Hey Slummy,

What you talki'n 'bout? Are you saying there is something East of Pocatello?

Damn! A guy can learn something new everyday around this place.

looks like everybody's giving you pretty good advice on size. I'll just add this. if you've got a big stash of firewood already cut and you do not have room to store it at least under roof. and it's going to be a few years before you would use what you're going to accumulate on the project I would leave them in longer log form backed up somewhere . I think the wood keeps better that way been cut it into the stick size a little before you need it.

What area are you calling the "banana belt"?

Plains area.

I asked because I've seen people from Bozeman and Billings incorrectly claim that they live in the Banana Belt. I live around the Elliston area just a mile from the Divide and we get some pretty cold winters here, -35 degrees isn't unusual (that's not including any wind chill).

I wish we had hardwood around here, it would cut down the amount of wood cutting I have to do every year. My house is a 30 year old log home that needs a lot of upgrades and we burn about 6 cords a year, our coldest year required 8 cords. As a result we burn any wood we can get, including the little stuff but I don't bother splitting it unless it's at least 12 inches in diameter. i only split the 12 inch wood once. If the wood is around 24 inches then I'll split it twice.

I'll burn 3 - 3.5 cords of hardwood in our woodstove in an average winter.

They grow bananas in the banana belt?