Standing Dead Trees

[smokinj]

You know "Common Sense isn't that Common anymore" By the way that standing dead soft maple I only split and cut 2 rounds and it got too punky I will just leave it in the woods. I'm not cutting wood for this season anyway.

I had a stump last month 63 inch sliver maple 5 foot long. Punky all the way through after only 2 year. I would not have guess there was anyway the whole piece was crap. The 2 year old oak we done Sunday was WET WET WET calling it oak squeezins! They split it like tooth picks took forever but they have no other option. (At this Point)

 

[Lumber-Jack]

Beetle kill Lodgepole pine is the only type of standing dead trees that I know I can burn right away, but even with them you have to check the shape of the needles to make sure the trees have been dead for many years. It's the way the tree dies that cuts off the flow of sap to the tree and it basically dies from dehydration. Unlike leaves which will fall off after the first season, the needles stay on for years which continue to dissipate moisture long after the tree is dead.
All that and living in a dry belt area in a province where we have and estimated 16.3 million hectares of pine beetle infested forest makes finding ample supply of ready to burn standing dead wood pretty easy. I have no problem cutting my firewood in the fall for that burning season if I need to.
However, travel 150 miles West of here to coastal BC and it's a totally different situation, constant rain and no pine beetle (they don't like the rain I guess). Try and season your wood in stacks outside and after the first year they will be covered in moss.
It all depends where you live.

 

[Cascade Failure]

Location and circumstances................................around here I know that standing dead, no bark, Eastern Red Cedar, I can burn it as soon as I cut it. There is another species, I only know it by sight (no bark, lengthwise crack, baseball bat sound), cut and burn with no problems.

Standing dead oak with no bark..........................depends. Some pegs the meter and some is bone dry.

 

[3fordasho]

Just cut down standing dead red elm and a cottonwood. The red elm was about 12" dia at the base, not a stitch of bark or branches on it and it measured about 20% moisture content. The cottonwood was a larger twin trunk, 50% bark gone, the rest coming off in sheets, not many branches left, seems to be about 30% MC. I bet it'll be good to go in a month or two now that it's split and stacked.