Reading all the previous posts the two main characteristics that people are looking for in their fire wood are fast drying, and easy to split. Those two reasons are why I pick lodgepole pine as my wood of choice.
Because of it’s long straight grain trunk and lack of major branches it is very easy to split. As for quick drying, lodgepole pine has every other type of wood beat hands down, not because it’s so quick drying, but because it’s already dry when I cut the trees down.
Thanks to the prolific pine beetle and our arid climate there is an abundance of standing dead lodgepole pines in my area (and most of BC), and as long as I seek out a grove that has been dead for many years, discernable by it’s sparse and withered needles, I can be pretty certain the moisture content of the wood will already be below 20% and ready for burning in the stove as soon as it’s cut. No extra drying (seasoning) time required.
As far as the other characteristics that people look for like fragrance, pine obviously has a great smell, in fact that “fresh pine scent†is a sales feature to many scented products on the market.
And as BTUs go, lodgepole pine is on the top of the softwoods list, and beats out many of the so called hardwoods like cherry, birch, elm and silver maple.
In my book lodgepole pine is the perfect all-round firewood.
BTU reference
