wet firewood sold by vendors

Just to be fair, I do buy local firewood sometimes, for the convenience, but I usually check around for a local fellow who even delivers the wood to the campsite!

Last year I left an envelope in a not-in-the-open place and he delivered and stacked while we were gone. Local preacher supplementing his income.

It worked nicely in that log cabin style fire I described. His price was fair, service good, no complaints.

I see lots of info in the thread on how to not use wet wood, so here is a little input on how to have a fire with it.

Having been raised and spent many weekends in my teens camping on the North Coast of BC (100inchs of rain a year") you learn how to have a fire with wet wood or stay cold and wet.

Split all the wet wood rounds into at least 6 pieces. You want the wood smaller rather than bigger.
Start with as much dry small stuff as you can get. Get a small hot fire going with this and build up a good bed of coals. Nowadays a fire log is a good way to get it going and saves time.

Once you have a good small fire going use the log cabin method to add fire wood on top/around your fire. Think walls with floors every seocnd layer. The trick it to keep space between each piece/layer of wood. Once this wood starts burning, keep the pile of wood on top the fire as big as is practical. This help preheat/dry the wood at the top so as it works its way down to the flames/bottom it is heated and dryer and will burn better.

This also helps reduce smoke but smokie fires with wet wood is just the way it is. I have never heard of the OSB squares on top of the fire to reduce smoke. I will have to try that one out.

Hope this helps a little.

Edit/side note: The other thing we learn young is how to string up big blue tarps to stay dry and withstand wind. I always have at least three tarps and a few hundred feet of halilbut line or 5/16 line to tie them up with. Have one tarp just for stringing up high over a fire so you can stand around in the rain and keep dry. Thats camping on the North Coast :)

The firewood that has been trucked in from far away has been heat treated to kill any bugs that might be living in it. At least that's how it is around here. The local parks can sell wood taken from there own park but, the local retailers must sell wood that has been heat treated or face a fine.

DiskDoctr wrote:
Many of the places we camp, the 'camp store' is a vendor who licenses to sell wood..and the same or others who sell whatever. Not really the park, except for the licensing fees they pick up.

Camp Wood is convenient, but the 'burn only our wood' is a scam that should be deemed 'conspiracy to defraud' IMHO.

Protecting our natural resources is one thing. Using that as an excuse to gouge is another. Yep, pet peeve of mine ;)

I agree. The last time we camped (in GA) we bought so-called local firewood--from Pikeville, TN. Now I don't know where Pikeville, TN, is but I know for darn sure it wasn't within 200 miles of where we were camping!

It is possible to have a good fire but that takes advance planning .
The available local firewood generally has too much moisture content .
But you can still use some of that local wood by carrying material from home .
There is a current thread about smoky fire remedies to visit .
It is possible to turn a smoking fire into a hot vigorous non smoking fire by placing a single OSB square on top of the smoky fire .
You ration your OSB squares and ONLY use them on top to cure a smoky fire .
The OSB is not the fire it is the cure for a bad fire .
This requires planning ahead and collecting the OSB from local construction sites and packing them tightly into a box that you carry in your pickup .
Another choice is to purchase a box of Duraflame logs and cutting them into quarters before your trip .
This is not as good as OSB flat and is more expensive .
The duraflame quarters are another way to accelerate the fire starting technique and provides a base for the crummy wood available at the campground .
Another choice is to collect the 2x4/2x6 trim ends at the construction site and use them for most of your fire .
But that requires more payload and room than your tow vehicle may have .
The OSB on Top method requires the least amount of fire materials from home to repair the smoky fire from the local vendor .
We never pay for local firewood . We will collect firewood nearby and use our OSB scraps to make them burn Hot and Complete .

DiskDoctr wrote:
Many of the places we camp, the 'camp store' is a vendor who licenses to sell wood..and the same or others who sell whatever. Not really the park, except for the licensing fees they pick up.

Camp Wood is convenient, but the 'burn only our wood' is a scam that should be deemed 'conspiracy to defraud' IMHO.

Protecting our natural resources is one thing. Using that as an excuse to gouge is another. Yep, pet peeve of mine ;)

Exactly! a lot of campgrounds have jumped on the EAB bandwagon to try and sell their own wood. this is true when the campground won`t even let you burn scrap lumber 2X4`s and such! if they were worried about the trees, then they would rather have the kiln dried lumber in the campground!

Many of the places we camp, the 'camp store' is a vendor who licenses to sell wood..and the same or others who sell whatever. Not really the park, except for the licensing fees they pick up.

Camp Wood is convenient, but the 'burn only our wood' is a scam that should be deemed 'conspiracy to defraud' IMHO.

Protecting our natural resources is one thing. Using that as an excuse to gouge is another. Yep, pet peeve of mine ;)

A couple of years ago I camped at brown county state park in Indiana and I bought wood that was tagged by usda (had to have a tag) And it was ironic that in fine print WARNING wood may contain the following ASH!!!! ETC....Uh wasn't the whole idea not to transport firewood to prevent emerald ash borer from spreading?? Yup the company was from out of state.

We bring our wood with us. If we run out in Alabama State Parks we just go into the woods and pick up the trees and limbs and burn that. We have had so many storms over the last few years the rangers ask us to pick up and burn the downed trees.

Concerning firewood I thought this was funny in that I bought some firewood at a north Florida State park back in Dec. looked at the tag and it was from a company in Bakersfield Ca.! Thinking this was a long way to ship firewood I asked the ranger about it and he said it came in on a truck with Ca. plates. It was probably some of the best firewood I ever bought.