It certainly is, which seems harsh. I think that when Australians think of North American trees, they think of the big softwoods only and generalise to say that it is all lousy firewood. I burned two sticks of locust yesterday morning and it seemed ok but not enough to really tell. In theory, the specific gravity of locust is 0.77 which puts it in the lower to mid-tier eucalypts that I mostly burn. BUT, the growing environment seems to make a difference to the extent that US planted blue gum can be 25-30% less dense than the same tree in Australia. With the harsher summers here, maybe Oz grown locust may be denser than in its home environment? Dunno.
I never used to see BL when I was driving around but now that I know what it is, you see patches of it here and there. Sometimes farmers may have planted it as windrows. Its invasive qualities are evident though.
Below is a burn pile of dry locust logs which the farmer I got the last lot from is planning to torch when fire restrictions are lifted in a few weeks. That's a big locust in the background too. Though it may be closish in BTUs to locally sold firewood, no-one would buy it because they don't know what it is. Me, I'm going to cut this lot and burn it this year so then I don't have to do any stacking in the shed
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