Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Firewood: What variety do you like best?

I had an almond ranch in Livingston CA for 10 years. Almond burns great!

Sam - great pic! Ash is the easy button around here. Burns great even without proper seasoning

Be a while before I am through all the beetle killed ash here. Been ash trees dying here for the last decade. I have just about forgotten what anything else burns like.

Locust is like a sunburned dik. Hard to beat.....but it's hard on a chain too. Makes heat, good coals and burns long. Free is always good.

Red oak for heat. Poplar for easy splitting.

I got LOTS of live oak. All I burn in our Vermont Casting stove

Hedge=Osage Orange=Bois D’arc= what the Indians made a lot of bows out of.

Splits good.

Burns hot as hades, like melt the rack in your fireplace if you give it a straight diet of hedge. Best to mix it with some oak. Sparks pretty bad too, but nothing burns hotter.

Locust preferred red oak second ash maple 3rd paradise burns better than poplar in a pinch

Just for giggles


Edit to add: think this chart is million BTUs per chord when comparing to some other pages

Almond and eucalyptus.

You guys are lucky with what you have available… 99% of what I burn is black spruce. When I’m lucky I can get some birch, but that’s rare.

Wow roger that. We don’t have that up North.

Yellow cedar for the smell in the house. Hemlock for my overnighters.

I’ve burned Eucalyptus out in CA - it’s oily & hottt

Anything close by and easy to cut...

That means cottonwood and Chinese elm.

When I was still in W NY and the state was on their Ash Eradication kick, I burnt nothing but ash for 3 years. Buddy had a contract with the state to cut down thousands and thousands of Ash trees. Was only allowed to transport a certain distance. When I sold my place, it inured nearly 6 cord of cut, split, stacked, and nearly 8 log truck loads of Ash trees.

Locust is tops in easy to get/heat production.
It also is irritating, nasty, slippery, stinky, when green. Splintery dry. Makes sparks like crazy in the furnace.

And dangerous as hell to fell. A healthy, live tree may very well have ants sold way high up, and can break and fall.


Really like oak, especially Red. It splits nice.

Ash, Sassafrass, Walnut, Hickory, Apple, all burn well and produce heat.



Elm is fine when dry, if you can split it.

Logging friend swung a deal with a junkyard guy, windshield for a load of wood.
When the windshield was delivered, it wasn't the one agreed on. It was scratched and mostly junk.
Tommy never said a word to the guy.
Took about two weeks until the firewood was delivered.
Solid load of the biggest slippery elm he could find!
He laughed about driving by and seeing the guy hit a piece with a maul.
It bounced back!

Palm Frans burn fast and hot and heats up the house very very fast.
I use them for the quick heat when we get cold.
I've had 2 chimney fires with them cleaning out all the crappy build up from everything else I burn.

The first time my neighbor called me out and we watched the flame shooting straight up out of the masonry chimney. It shook the house pretty good.
We had a pretty good show for about 5 minutes until it stopped.
I burned all the crap out that I inherited from the owner before me.

That Bois d’arc is hard wood. My father in law made a sleeve bearing out of it in a saw mill during the depression and he said they used it for years. Just had to keep it greased.
Mesquite is great for cooking. If green it burns really hot.
We use mostly oak around here because it’s local. Lots of dead wood due to the droughts.

Just cut 2 1/2 cords of madrone the other day. No branches, slick bark, perfect dry wood.