Category: dear don’t move firewood

Dear Don't Move Firewood,

I live in Missouri and I camp often. Is it ok to use lumber without bark?

Yours,

Concerned Camper

 

Dear Concerned Camper,

What a deceptively complicated question- and a good one to ask. Lumber (I assume you mean cut firewood, not construction lumber here) without bark is indeed a bit less likely to contain bark dwelling insects, or insects that burrow between the bark and the heartwood (like emerald ash borer). But it is NOT safe 100%, and thus it often violates state or federal quarantines regardless of what part of the tree that an insect might prefer. Firewood without bark is not OK to transport from a practical, and often legal, perspective.

 

I found this nice brochure on the specifics of emerald ash borer in Missouri. From there, you can learn about one pest in Missouri- but there are others, like thousand cankers disease, that also spread on firewood (and in the heartwood, so de-barking doesn't help at all) and are also a big threat.

 

Verdict? Not a good idea. Please either keep firewood local, or buy it near your destination. Thanks for asking.

 

Dear Don't Move Firewood,

I know we shouldn't take firewood with us when we travel to camp. Could you help provide resources to let us know rules and regs. to collecting firewood in different areas?

Thanks,

Oregonian

 

Dear Oregonian,

The answer is very dependent on where you are going. In Oregon, there is no overall state law or regulation on collecting firewood, but different land managers (like private land, state lands, national parks or national forest) all may set their own independent rules. The best thing to do is spend a little bit of time on the internet, searching for where you are going and what the local rules might be. For instance, I poked around on the Forest Service National Forest listing for Oregon, and found that (as one example) on the Umpqua they have a nicely organized firewood page. Most sites will have information on firewood in either a camping page, or a permits page, in my experience.

 

In your neighboring states, i.e. see external links for Washington, Idaho, and California, the regulations will differ but the concept is the same. I'm sorry it isn't easier to list all the exact resources!

 

 

 

 

 

 

New question for Dear Don’t Move Firewood!

Dear Don’t Move Firewood,

I have a tenant who brought ash firewood from Massachusetts to Connecticut without my prior knowledge and has stored the wood on the property within the structure. I am reporting this as I am concerned for both the home and other trees on my property.

Yours, Worried in CT

Dear Worried,

First, let me put your mind at ease in terms of the risk to your rental property’s structure. The emerald ash borer does not infest standing structures like houses. It needs live flowing sap in the wood to survive and reproduce.

Now, to the meat of the issue. You have potentially EAB infested wood on your hands. Here’s my advice. Burn it. Burn it all, burn it now, and let the renter know exactly why you are doing this. Be safe with your bonfire or fireplace, of course, but burn it soon. The adult EABs, if they are in there, could emerge as early as the end of April. So burn it before those bugs can crawl out! Make sure to get all little bark scraps and other debris and burn that too.

If your renter brought the wood to your house from Berkshire County of Massachusetts, they have violated a quarantine and could be at risk for a major fine. The quarantine is in place because Berkshire county has a known infestation of EAB in the Pittsfield/Dalton area, and there could be other infestations in the area as well. If you feel reminding them of this quarantine will help them take you seriously to NEVER move firewood like this again, please feel free to kindly show them this informative link; https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/ourfocus/planthealth/plant-pest-and-disease-programs/pests-and-diseases/emerald-ash-borer

If you think you have found an EAB or signs and symptoms of EAB, please report it! Learn more at https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/ourfocus/planthealth/plant-pest-and-disease-programs/pests-and-diseases/emerald-ash-borer 

 

 

 

 

A reader question about their dying oaks, and what to do about it…

 

Dear Don't Move Firewood,

We've had some oak trees die in our neighborhood this summer. I've lost one and was wondering if there was something I could do, like maybe add something to the soil that might help.

Thanks,

Concerned Tree Owner

 

Dear Concerned,

 

I'm sorry to hear about your oaks. There are many things that could be affecting your oaks- some of them are environmental (like drought stress) and others are native pests (like two-lined chestnut borer) and lastly, it could be non-native pests (like goldspotted oak borer or Sudden oak death). However, without further information, I have no idea what might be the issue with your oaks.

 

However, as we have said before, the most important thing after you have noticed something is wrong is to ask a professional for help. A certified arborist, a master gardener, or someone from the County Extension offices near you might be able to come over and give a diagnosis- or at least a really good guess- regarding what's up with your trees. In some cases, treatments could be reasonable and affordable. In other cases, the tree may not be saved. You won't know until you have a qualified opinion from someone that knows your area.

 

Good luck, and I hope you can save your other trees.

 

What if you have firewood that you don't want? What's the best way to get rid of the stuff?

 

Dear Don't Move Firewood,

I recently bought a house that has a stack of firewood in the back corner of my lot. I won't be using the firewood due to allergies. 

What is the best removal plan?

Yours,

Concerned Cara

 

Dear Concerned Cara,

Congratulations on buying a house! That's exciting. Getting rid of the firewood shouldn't be too hard, even if you don't want to burn it yourself. Here are some options:

– If you have a large lot and it isn't in the way, you could just leave it there forever. Depends on your planned use of the land, yes, but it is truly doing no harm ecologically by just sitting there, so that's the simplest method. (NOTE: after originally posting this blog, I was kindly reminded that in some parts of the country, piles of firewood near your house can increase the risks of other pests like carpenter ants, fire ants, or termites setting up shop in or near your home. Further, in the fire-prone parts of the country, firewood piles can be dangerous if there is wildfire in the area. Therefore, unused firewood piles should be a long distance from your house- I'd guess a safe distance is 100ft or more!)

– I recently read that firewood can be used on-site in the making of very water-efficient raised beds for gardening! How cool! So if you are planning on doing any raised flower beds or vegetable beds in the spring, please look up "Hugelkultur" online for a really neat way to use extra firewood in your gardens. It will reduce the amount of money you need to spend on gardening soil, too! Win-win.

– You don't want to burn it because of your allergies (I presume you are very sensitive to indoor wood particulates) but someone else could burn it, of course. One thing you could do is give it away to a local friend or neighbor that is very nearby. For instance, if you had someone just down the street that burns wood in the winter, you could offer it to them. Moving firewood less than a few miles is quite harmless from the perspective of spreading insects and diseases. It is best to keep it under 10 miles at the top limit, please. And don't cross any town, county or state borders, as this increases the likelyhood that you could inadvertantly be violating a law or regulation.

– At last resort, you could take it to either your solid waste disposal (i.e. town dump) or municipal composting facility, if you have one. I know in my town, the municipal composting place takes logs up to 16" in diameter- pretty huge and certainly bigger than cut firewood. So once you have the time, you could look up your new local services and figure that out.

Good luck, and thanks for asking!

 

 

Here's a thought provoking question; what is a native species? When does it move far enough from where it is now, to where it goes to, to become a non-native species? This isn't a question from your biology class, it is a real quandary. For instance,  the goldspotted oak borer is an invasive species in Southern California, but its origin isn't that far off- Northern Mexico and parts of Arizona. I discussed this with reporter Clint Williams last week, to support his excellent article in Mother Nature News, Imported firewood can be more dangerous than fire. Crossing a major biological divide- like a huge desert- is just as potentially damaging as crossing the Atlantic or Pacific ocean, when it comes to the transport of pests.

 

This issue also came up in a recent email from the Don't Move Firewood advice line. So let's take a look at that!

 

Dear Don't Move Firewood,

Dandelion seeds are light and fluffy so they will blow long distances and spread. Burdocks cling to jeans and fur and are carried long distances to spread species. Transporting species from one region to another helps nature. The insects and the trees are both part of nature.

Yours,

Tom

 

Dear Tom,

You are misunderstanding the issue at hand. Don't Move Firewood isn't because we are concerned that native, natural, local insects will be spread throughout their appropriate habitats. This isn't about creatures that belong in the landscape. This is about invasive species. Invasives are things that reproduce, damage, and even kill in an out of control fashion, because they do not belong. Insects and trees are part of nature, but these particular insects are NOT part of this nature. These insects and diseases belong in far off lands, or at least biologically separate lands, where they originally evolved. When people move them, they escape "nature" in the truest sense, and grow out of control. Transporting these species is destructive.

Thanks for reading.

 

A tough question came into the advice column inbox about a month ago, and I've been pondering it ever since.

 

Dear Don't Move FIrewood,

What is the reason for allowing campfires in the first place?

1. On the west side of the Columbia River in Washington State they allow fires in the forests.  The forests burn up due to fires.  On the east side of the Columbia in Douglas County fires are NOT allowed.

2. Campfires make pollution and breathing in campground HORRIBLE at times.

If people are serious about climate change ending campfires would bring the topic home and wake people up.  Plus the bugs would not travel in firewood hauled around.

Thanks in advance,

Tom

 

Dear Tom,

To start off, your very first question is the easiest. Campfires are not always allowed at all campgrounds and forests, because sometimes they do create unacceptable risks. When these risks (like forest fires) are well understood by the public, then the regulation to not allow fires is usually fairly well respected. But when the risks aren't well understood by the public (like forest pests) or aren't well accepted by a wide range of the public (like contributing to climate change), the regulation will only serve to encourage rule-breaking and essentially create even more unacceptable behavior, such as creating illegal fire rings outside the boundary of the campground. So the reason for allowing campfires in the first place, usually, is that there is no persuasive, fair, or compelling reason to prohibit them.

 

I agree that campfires create pollution, especially when people burn wet wood or during certain weather patterns. That's a great argument for occasionally banning campfires, when appropriate. Again, that'd be understood by the public, so it would be likely to be respected.

 

But I'm going to disagree with the ideas you've got at the end of your letter. I don't think acceptance of the issue of climate change is going to be furthered by antagonizing typical campers. Here at Don't Move Firewood, we draw a pretty bold line in the sand between the act of having a campfire, or having a wood stove, or even just burning wood as a concept, and the threat of forest pests. The spread of forest pests is caused primarily by bad practices and bad decisions- NOT by the campfire itself, or the wood stove, or whatever method is used to burn wood. We believe that education and cooperation is the key to success over time.

 

 

 

The National Parks Service contains some of the most diverse landscapes imaginable, and of course each Park or Monument deserves the right to choose how they protect their heritage from invasive species threats. Don't Move Firewood thinks it is smart to keep visitors from bringing firewood into the parks, especially if those visitors are coming from known high risk areas. With that in mind, we want to give a big shout out to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park for their very easy to read list of quarantined counties, accurate as of May 2012, to educate people on where firewood is absolutely prohibited by arriving with visitors from that county. Nice job! It makes it really easy for us to answer this recent question in our advice column;

 

Dear Don't Move Firewood,

We live in Blount County (TN). Cades Cove (valley within Great Smoky Mountains) is in Blount County.  Can we take our fire wood?

Yours,

Dorothy in Tennessee

 

Dear Dorothy,

Because Blount County is on the list of quarantined counties, even though your destination is in the same county, you still can't take firewood with you into Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I know that's a little confusing, but the idea is that there are extra precautions in place to keep pests like the emerald ash borer out of the National Park. Thanks for asking, and enjoy your trip!

 

 

 

 

Fun question today for our advice column…

 

Dear Don't Move Firewood

I would like to request a free DVD of yours. In the form page, I can not select my country. I'm from outside of US. If it is possible, would you please send me a copy?

Yours,

Ozgehan from Turkey

 

Dear Ozgehan,

We don't send our DVD overseas, so I'm afraid the answer is no. Instead of watching our videos on DVD, you could simply watch them on YouTube.com/dontmovefirewood, or you can download them for free from the iTunes store. As an important side note, we do send out materials to Canada and Mexico in limited quantities- but Turkey is out of our range.Thanks for asking!

Pallets, lumber, and other cut and dried scrap wood are indeed good to burn (as long as you are completely sure they were not treated with any chemicals such as arsenic or methyl bromide, which are very hazardous when burned). But are they ok to transport?

Dear Don’t Move Firewood;

I have a question about moving wood. I will be camping in NC this weekend and I was wondering if wood that has been kiln dried and milled is ok to transport? I have a source for old shipping pallets and would like to use those as firewood. Could there be any problems with using scrap lumber?

Thanks,

Tony

Dear Tony;

Great question. Old shipping pallets pose a few risks despite being dried and milled. For one thing, pests like the Spongy moth (which is found in NC and surrounding states) will lay their egg cases on nearly anything that is outside- so moving cut pallets that were stored outside for a few years very much risks moving that pest into your preferred camping area. Further, old pallets in particular stand a decent chance of having been fumigated in the past with the chemical Methyl Bromide. This is not a chemical you want to breathe- it is a known carcinogen- especially when you are trying to enjoy the fresh air of the great outdoors. Last but not least, sometimes campgrounds do not permit wood from the outside, especially scrap wood like this. Sometimes that’s because of pest threats, and other times that for the reason of nails, brackets and staples injuring workers as they periodically clean fire pits.

My advice is therefore that scrap wood and cut pallets can be burned at home if you are 100% sure they are not treated with wood preservatives or Methyl Bromide, but it still isn’t wise to bring it camping.

Oh, and last but not least, laws vary hugely by state. You don’t say where you are from, so I can’t comment on if bringing wood into North Carolina from your starting location is illegal or not. But it might be. And that’s not a good scenario!

Thanks for reading, and asking!