douglas fir

[akhilljack]

i got a few cords of douglas fir that the corp. of engineers cleared from a dam. it was all freshly downed or dead trees that washed out in a flood. its nice and dry for being in the water for a couple days. i cut it up with a saw and nothing was less than 30 inches in diameter. my question is after i split and stack it what should i expect from it. i dont plan on burning it this year but maybe next. what would it burn like and how much creasote would i have to deal with compared to say birch or spruce. would any one recomend it even if i had to pay for it. i got it for free though.

 

[Corey]

Well, Doug Fir is about 18 million btu/cord which puts it a little below red maple, but above most pine. Of course, my favorite (Hedge / Osage orange) is very nearly double that, but most any free wood is good wood! Check the link in my sig for a thorough listing. Creosote will mostly depend on how you burn it...if you build cold, smoky fires in an old non epa stove, you'll get some build-up. If you burn hot and clean with a later model stove, then it shouldn't be much more than any other wood. It might tend to burn a little fast due to the light weight - so long overnight fires might be a little hard.

Overall, sounds like a nice score, though. Congrats! How is the wood situation near Fairbanks?

 

[d.n.f.]

Dougy Fir is an excellent burner. Just make sure it is dry and you burn hot (like anything else right?).
Better than pine.
We get dinged 140 a cord for it out here (120 for pine).
It is worth around 1600 to 1800 (all in Canadian dollars) for a logging truck with 70' load.
I have burned some huge chunks of it and it has a nice glow.

cheers

 

[Highbeam]

Not much ash and not much creosote. Same as any evergreen. I actually like and prefer the doug fir with the exception of alder. I like red alder better. The older growth doug fir that you have being 30" DBH will be very pleasant to split and stack. The wood will split well into kindling too.

Here's a picture of my woodstack. The wood in the front of the photo is doug fir. You'll notice the orange color and straight grain.

Doug fir is pretty much all we grow up here, almost all clearcuts are replanted with the stuff.

 

[akhilljack]

thanks. i made my deck out of douglas fir so i knew what it looked like and have worked with it before. when ever i go out hunting there are trees hundreds of feet tall that i thought would be great for fire wood but i never see people selling it. since i got it for free i dont care any way. just didnt know why people dont use it more since there is so much of it. for the other questions above the firewood situation in faribanks. cut not split spruce can be got for around 350 per truck load. i have been seeing split birch for around 500 per cord. never see any fir though. basicly its real expensive so i scrounge all of my own. i dont know why, there is more public land in this state than in half the u.s. combined. there are millions of heavily wooded acres around here that burn to the ground every summer. there is way too much ground cover becuase no one can cut out there and cut it down so it catches fire so easy. it makes lots of people angry. if the state would make it easier to go out and cut every body would win. tree hugers that help pass blanket laws to keep every one out of the forest jsut make it worse as far as fires go. instead of being able to go out and cut where it is accesable to the public and clear out some of the fire danger the state lets us cut in only a few designated areas which sounds good until you actualy go there to cut and see that you cant get to most of these places becuase there are no roads or even cleared paths to even get a four wheeler to. they make you go through 10 miles of woods to get wood that no one wood get if they had to. fuel prices dirve this becuase there are no other alternatives. oil or wood. $5 per gallon or $500 for split birch.