Free Firewood Story In The News

[maplemeister]

My wife came across this story today while surfing the internet so thought I would pass it along. Don't often hear about big corporations extending a hand to the common folk these days.


Free firewood offer ends this weekend


Anchorage Daily News

Published: 01/23/09 17:25:34

NPI LLC, the former wood chipping and exporting company that shipped Asia-bound wood chips from Port MacKenzie in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, will end its offer of free firewood Sunday. Company spokesman Ron Arvin said he was shocked at how many people have driven to the company's Port MacKenzie site to cut and load free wood. He estimated 650 loads of free wood would have been hauled away by Friday evening. That's hundreds more than Arvin said he expected. By weekend's end, Arvin said he guessed the whole pile of trees the company owned, about 1,000 cords of wood, would be gone.

Arvin announced the free wood offer -- one pickup load of wood per family to anyone who would drive to get it -- about two weeks ago. He said he felt compelled to offer the pile of white spruce and birch the company had on its property after hearing a fire in an Anchorage four-plex had started because a resident burned cardboard in the fireplace.

NPI is offering assistance for elderly or disabled people who aren't able to cut and load the wood.

You can read the full story online at:

http://www.adn.com/matsu/story/665701.html



Maplemeister:

 

[husky455rancher]

thats really cool. im glad a company somewhere finally did something good like that. i hate to see good wood get wasted.

 

[alderman]

We used to be able..

to get our fire wood free from the paper mill I work at. Was a really nice set up with the stacker used to lift logs to waist height and they'd even let us use their saws. Those days are in the past. The wood mill is gone and all chips are trucked in.

There is a company trying to put in a LNG terminal down the road and they bought 4 cord of wood from me to haul across the mountain to some folks who had been without power for some time due to an ice storm. I gave him a break on the price and sounds like everybody came away happy.

There are some good folks left out there.

 

[thejdman04]

Nice to see a company giving back

 

[avalancher]

It sure is nice to read articles like that.It seems that times when big companies were willing to help out the community are long gone.
But in retrospect, I can see why.
A local mill used to allow anyone with a permit could come and cut wood on their cull piles. A permit was free, they just wanted to know who was on the property along with a description of their vehicle.
They quite letting folks cut there after they got sued. A loader was dumping a load of logs for some folks waiting to cut.One moron didnt wait until all the logs fell off the forks before diving in with his saw and got crushed.
the folks standing around waiting said he was complaining about waiting the 15 minutes for the logs to come out of the back side of the mill, and about the quality of the oak logs.
His widow sued the company and won a healthy check out of the deal. Now they wont even let folks that have any sense, they just simply burn the culls if there isnt any demand for the chips.

 

[maplemeister]

Sad but true. We have somehow reached the point where no one wants to take responsibility for their own actions anymore, and the greedy lawyers are standing there with their hands out waiting for 1/3 off the top, plus expenses, while the victim gets left with 1/3 or less.

Maple: