Burning White Fir

[firwood_ag]

Anyone out there burn white fir? They grow like weeds around here (Washington State) and no one will touch them for fire wood. I have been grabbing up a bunch of it and burning it like crazy. It seems to be perfect spring or fall wood. Burns clean, not too hot and not real long. I guess if I need more heat out of it I will throw some coal in with it.

 

[RedFir Down]

The only time we bring white fir home is if we need to finish loading out a truck, even then it seems to make its way to dads place.
But like you are stating it make decent shoulder season wood (fall/spring).

 

[windthrown]

What you are calling white fir is more likely Grand fir. True White Fir grows at altitude in California, Oregon and the southern Rockies. I am not aware of any stands of White Fir in WA. Grand fir is very common here. I am burning Grand fir's close cousin, Pacific silver fir now. It was an old growth that we dropped last year. Light burning, but gives off good heat. It also does not have the gobs of sap that grand firs tend to have. I cut and burned a lot of Grand fir at my ex's place. Very light, sappy, not what I would go out of my way for, but it is better than stinky cottonwood.

 

[cat-face timber]

I have burned some Fir myself, Douglas fir is what we have here, and it sure burns good, very little ash and nice and light, easy to split.
I say burn the hell out of it. I tend to burn what others do not. If it is wood, I am likely to burn it.

 

[RedFir Down]

What you are calling white fir is more likely Grand fir. True White Fir grows at altitude in California, Oregon and the southern Rockies. I am not aware of any stands of White Fir in WA. Grand fir is very common here. I am burning Grand fir's close cousin, Pacific silver fir now. It was an old growth that we dropped last year. Light burning, but gives off good heat. It also does not have the gobs of sap that grand firs tend to have. I cut and burned a lot of Grand fir at my ex's place. Very light, sappy, not what I would go out of my way for, but it is better than stinky cottonwood.

Yes I relate White fir to Grand fir.
Tell me more about Pacific Silver fir.... Its doesn't grow around here and I dont know much about it? Where are you located?

 

[turnkey4099]

I have burned some Fir myself, Douglas fir is what we have here, and it sure burns good, very little ash and nice and light, easy to split.
I say burn the hell out of it. I tend to burn what others do not. If it is wood, I am likely to burn it.

Same here. I go with the best economic return, i.e., if I can get junk wood cheap or free,I will use it rather than go many miles to get better or worse have to buy it. Heated this house for over 30 years with Willow. All I wanted within a few miles of the house, for better it meant a 100 mile roundtrip to the mountains for fir or tamarack. Made that trip for 2 years when I first started burning before I realized it was not an economic option.

Harry K

 

[slowp]

Silver Fir grows at higher elevations in the Cascades. It also is growing in my yard because somebody transplanted a few. You'll find it
at the same elevations where huckleberries are found-3500 feet to near the timberline.

When I lived over on the east side, I cut whatever I could find. That included Grand Fir. It burns and it heats. The Wood Snobs did not touch it. Sometimes you can find lodgepole pine in the same areas and that burns well too, and is also overlooked.

When timber sales are put together, those species get reported as white woods, or hemlock and other species. They are priced the same. Locally, the Silver Fir, Grand Fir, and Western Hemlock all get shipped to a hemlock mill. The Douglas-fir goes to a different mill in our valley, and cedar to a cedar mill..

 

[windthrown]

I have burned some Fir myself, Douglas fir is what we have here, and it sure burns good, very little ash and nice and light, easy to split.
I say burn the hell out of it. I tend to burn what others do not. If it is wood, I am likely to burn it.

Doug fir and larch have way better heat than any of the so-called 'white firs' around here. Much more heat, and as you say, little ash. For that reason, the wood pellets made from Doug fir command a premium back east for pellet stoves.

 

[windthrown]

Silver Fir grows at higher elevations in the Cascades. It also is growing in my yard because somebody transplanted a few. You'll find it at the same elevations where huckleberries are found-3500 feet to near the timberline.

While silver firs tend to grow more at higher elevations, it also grows down to sea level in the PNW. The old growth Silver firs that I cut and am burning now were in West Linn, at maybe 400 ft. elevation. They were at least 130 years old scattered in a native stand near the Tualatin River in a mixed stand of hemlock, big leaf maple and red cedars. I have cruised and ID'd stands all over the PNW of both Silver firs and Grand firs. They are easy to tell apart by the needles. Grands are far more common, but silvers are mixed in and scattered around the valleys, coast range and Cascades. At least in Oregon...

When I lived over on the east side, I cut whatever I could find. That included Grand Fir. It burns and it heats. The Wood Snobs did not touch it. Sometimes you can find lodgepole pine in the same areas and that burns well too, and is also overlooked.

I have cut a lot of grand fir, and I do not cut it any more. Sappy, light, and not worth it IMO. They call them piss firs here. On the flip side, I do not agree with you about lodgepole pine. I have a lot of if growing on my property here, and it is really good firewood. It commands a premium here, and sells for a high price from local wood sellers. I have known several people in OR, WA and ID that bypass grands but will hunt for and cut lodgepole for firewood.

When timber sales are put together, those species get reported as white woods, or hemlock and other species. They are priced the same. Locally, the Silver Fir, Grand Fir, and Western Hemlock all get shipped to a hemlock mill. The Douglas-fir goes to a different mill in our valley, and cedar to a cedar mill..

Depends highly on the area and what the local mills are set up for. It has changed a lot since the great recession, and the many mills that were closed in that time. A few years ago in Southern Oregon grand firs commanded a higher premium at the pond, as there were sash mills there that used it specifically.

 

[windthrown]

Yes I relate White fir to Grand fir.
Tell me more about Pacific Silver fir.... Its doesn't grow around here and I dont know much about it? Where are you located?

I am on the western slopes of Mt Hood in the Cascades, in North Oregon.

There are a lot of Pacific Silver firs at higher elevations in the Cascades farther south, but they also grow in isolated areas in the coast range and valleys, and more toward the coast and lower in elevation the farther north you go. They are all over Vancouver Island in BC and they grow in the coastal areas of BC and Alaska. They do not grow in the Rockies like Grand firs do. I have seen stands of them at lower elevations and cut them in the Tualatin Valley in northern Oregon. Likely they were far more scattered in lowland areas in earlier years here before the Willamette and Tualatin Valleys were cleared for farming. I have found that Pacific silvers do not gush the gobs of sap that Grands do when falling.

If you look at the two species from a distance, they look the same. The needles are slightly different, and they smell different. Grand fir has what I call the 'smell of Oregon' to them. Likely from all the sap, they smell great to me. The wood is also similar. It is light color and light in weight. Like grand, it only takes one summer to dry it to less than 20% moisture. The wood burns about the same, it is rather light but burns well in a damped down wood stove in the shoulder seasons. I had 3 cords of it going onto this year, I have half of that left now. I have some burning now to take the chill off the house.

 

[Big_Al]

We will cut it if its easy to get. Makes good shoulder wood or campfires. Never seen anyone selling it. Lodgepole is a step above and is easy to find. You will see folks selling it for firewood, usually 160ish a cord.

 

[slowp]

Excuse me Windthrown, but you are misreading my posts or misunderstanding them. Lodgepole is good to burn, but in my previous neighborhood, it was overlooked by most people. They wanted Larch and Doug-fir, in that order. They weren't looking for Lodgepole so it was easy for me to find and load up.

Our local mills are still going. We still have the three still taking the same wood. One mill even takes white wood from the Yakama tribe. Looks like fire salvage is coming over from there now.

I believe the areas I live in are less populated than where you are, and we have some pretty picky firewooders. One guy got huffy when I wouldn't traipse off the road to mark a DF for him. Not that I was lazy, but off road cutting was a no no in that area. I was clearing a hemlock out of the road and suggested he back up and throw it in. He declined and left.

Alder is pretty easy to come by, as most folks don't want it either. A guy from the Columbia Gorge couldn't believe how picky the local folks are. He said what we throw off the road would be cleaned up by firewood cutters in that area.

We joke, but it is almost true, the locals want peeler grade large diameter old growth Doug-fir, plus some cedar for kindling. That's it. That's here.

 

[windthrown]

Well, don't get yourself into a lather. If you do not like what I say just put me on your ignore list... geez. Your idea and my idea of WA are obviously different. Which is typical. I was born here. I know people from the gorge up to the Skagit River and east to Spokane. I go back country skiing and snow shoeing, and off roading and white water kayaking all around the Mt Adams and St Helens areas all year round. I also ski patrol with several dozen people from Southern WA state all winter. I am pretty high up and 3 miles up the road here I can see the southern WA Cascades. This area is actually as or more remote, and the towns here are all long gone that are listed on any maps. My property is surrounded by the Mt Hood National Forest, which is rather vast. The only traffic here are logging trucks and the few of us that live out here, and the occasional lost person. Very few houses out here, as you cannot build in OR outside the urban lines like you can in WA.

People here will take anything except cottonwood, which litters the roadways after the recent storms. Alder I will be happy to collect. I would like to get larch, but there is not any of that here on the west slopes of the Oregon Cascades. Also there is mostly Doug fir around here (AKA: red fir farther east) which is just about as good. Most of my neighbors either cut their own trees or have log truck loads of cull Doug fir logs dropped and process it. I have been scrounging wood from the burbs down in the east and south side of Portland, as the last 2 years here the west side of the north Oregon Cascades has been closed to national forest wood cutting. The last year has been a lot harder to scrounge wood though, and there is a lot less listed on CL lately. I may just get some mill ends of DF dumped here for $300/MBF (about 3 cords).

 

[firwood_ag]

"What you are calling white fir is more likely Grand fir."

You are probably right about that. I have heard some folks call them Grand Firs. I guess it is like Red Fir vs. Douglas Fir. Anyway, all I was getting at is that people around here won't touch the stuff so I end up with a pile of it...Had a bunch of it sawed up for lumber at my neighbors mill 2 years ago and put up a few barns with it. Seems be strong enough to hold up under some large Simcoe Mountain snow loads...Maybe that is a better option than fire wooding it.