Scrounging Firewood (and other stuff)

[al-k]

Well you could burn the outer half inch no worries. Deeper in than that and it's a bit moist. Should be good to go after a couple of summers. The first one will be out in the open and in the shed for the second one.

While I was out there today I had another look at the other tree I've been coveting. The high branch is stuck in a fork.

View attachment 678448

And here's the lower one with Limby for size reference. If we're unable to get the top one down we should be able to pull the lower one out from underneath it at least. There's be an easy cord in that plus the branch material out of picture to the left.

View attachment 678449

I noticed how open and short the grass is there. Is there cattle or something in there? It reminds me of my days on the farm.

 

[Cowboy254]

I noticed how open and short the grass is there. Is there cattle or something in there? It reminds me of my days on the farm.

Well the last pic in #34494 is at my place and the grass is short because Cowgirl makes me mow it . But you're right, the grass where I've been scrounging hasn't really got going yet. The only animals in the scrounge area are wallabies, wombats and bunnies, no cattle since it's public land. Actually, there was also this, not sure if it's a native species or not .



This area has been used as a designated firewood collection zone for a while now and I guess a fair few trees have had accidents (though not by my hand). They do use these areas for practice for the CFA (Country Fire Authority) for dropping trees and chainsaw use as well which opens it up some more. We had some rain a couple of days ago but prior to that it hardly rained for a month - and it has been reasonably cool. Normally the grass would have sprung up by now after winter but being cooler and without the rain, it ain't got nothin. There are a few farmers around here starting to grumble but for a scrounger, these conditions are good.

 

[Jeffkrib]

Hey Cowboy can you just go in and take as much as you want in VIC or do you need a permit?
Is it state forest?

 

[chipper1]

Well you could burn the outer half inch no worries. Deeper in than that and it's a bit moist. Should be good to go after a couple of summers. The first one will be out in the open and in the shed for the second one.

While I was out there today I had another look at the other tree I've been coveting. The high branch is stuck in a fork.

View attachment 678448

And here's the lower one with Limby for size reference. If we're unable to get the top one down we should be able to pull the lower one out from underneath it at least. There's be an easy cord in that plus the branch material out of picture to the left.

View attachment 678449

The oak I just cut had a little moisture in it, but it lit right up and burned nicely . We were supposed to be having a bonfire party today, but it's raining steady and they are predicting rain at least until late Monday (I didn't look out any farther yet), not gonna be any outdoor burning for a while .
I wondered as dense as that wood is if it took a long time to dry even once dead. How long does it take when you start with green wood.

That's a nice little branch , good thing you have "Limby". Your right about there being a nice amount of wood in it.

 

[svk]

Cool and misting/drizzling this morning. I do not see myself accomplishing much today.

 

[woodchip rookie]

BUNYAN DAY AGAIN!!!

 

[Cowboy254]

Hey Cowboy can you just go in and take as much as you want in VIC or do you need a permit?
Is it state forest?

G'day Jeff, yes it's state forest. Until about 6 years ago you needed a per-metre permit which cost about $12 or so and a time frame to get it - like a given weekend - but the volume you took wasn't really enforced. Once when I went into the Parks office to get a permit has asked how much I was going to get and I said a fair bit. He sez "Say, about a metre"? And I say no, we'll be getting a fair bit more than that. "No, no, mate, a metre is a fair amount you know. And I'll put on here two weeks to get it". And I say, yeah but we need much more than a metre. And he just looks at me . Eventually I twig that he's saying here's your permit for one metre, go and take as much as you want I don't care, he just couldn't say it out aloud...I was a bit slow on the uptake that day.

Now there are designated areas where you can cut wood Sep-Nov and Mar-May but not in the summer or winter months and there are a whole lot of do's and don'ts in the name of protecting the environment. You can take up to 12 cubes per year, I'm up to about 7.5 now. You don't need a permit for those areas but you can't cut wood anywhere else on public land now - so the designation of small areas for collection was a sop to those who might complain about the remaining 95% of the forest being locked up. The trick is to scrounge in September when you'll have trees fallen over through the winter months and no-one is thinking about cutting wood when it's warming up.

The oak I just cut had a little moisture in it, but it lit right up and burned nicely . We were supposed to be having a bonfire party today, but it's raining steady and they are predicting rain at least until late Monday (I didn't look out any farther yet), not gonna be any outdoor burning for a while .
I wondered as dense as that wood is if it took a long time to dry even once dead. How long does it take when you start with green wood.

That's a nice little branch , good thing you have "Limby". Your right about there being a nice amount of wood in it.

I expect the drying rate will be slow, though the box from the last few weeks is checking nicely already. I did have some grey box mebbe 10 years ago that I cut in late spring and tried to burn the next winter which you can do with peppermint etc that will dry well in one summer. It didn't burn well and I saw when I split one bit smaller that it was still quite moist inside. And it doesn't have much water in it to begin with, the green density is 1170kg/m and 12%MC is 1120kg/m. I'm giving this two summers and should be good to go .

 

[KiwiBro]

G'day Jeff, yes it's state forest. Until about 6 years ago you needed a per-metre permit which cost about $12 or so and a time frame to get it - like a given weekend - but the volume you took wasn't really enforced. Once when I went into the Parks office to get a permit has asked how much I was going to get and I said a fair bit. He sez "Say, about a metre"? And I say no, we'll be getting a fair bit more than that. "No, no, mate, a metre is a fair amount you know. And I'll put on here two weeks to get it". And I say, yeah but we need much more than a metre. And he just looks at me . Eventually I twig that he's saying here's your permit for one metre, go and take as much as you want I don't care, he just couldn't say it out aloud...I was a bit slow on the uptake that day.

Now there are designated areas where you can cut wood Sep-Nov and Mar-May but not in the summer or winter months and there are a whole lot of do's and don'ts in the name of protecting the environment. You can take up to 12 cubes per year, I'm up to about 7.5 now. You don't need a permit for those areas but you can't cut wood anywhere else on public land now - so the designation of small areas for collection was a sop to those who might complain about the remaining 95% of the forest being locked up. The trick is to scrounge in September when you'll have trees fallen over through the winter months and no-one is thinking about cutting wood when it's warming up.



I expect the drying rate will be slow, though the box from the last few weeks is checking nicely already. I did have some grey box mebbe 10 years ago that I cut in late spring and tried to burn the next winter which you can do with peppermint etc that will dry well in one summer. It didn't burn well and I saw when I split one bit smaller that it was still quite moist inside. And it doesn't have much water in it to begin with, the green density is 1170kg/m and 12%MC is 1120kg/m. I'm giving this two summers and should be good to go .

Is there a state fire protection mandate or the like that promotes the controlled reduction of fuel loads before fire seasons? I mean, it seems like every year lately there's at least one catastrophic Aus bush fire on the news here. Sometimes the ash or the impact thereof can be seen in the sky over here. If scroungers can't clean up the downed trees, how do they reduce the fuel loads?

 

[Cowboy254]

Is there a state fire protection mandate or the like that promotes the controlled reduction of fuel loads before fire seasons? I mean, it seems like every year lately there's at least one catastrophic Aus bush fire on the news here. Sometimes the ash or the impact thereof can be seen in the sky over here. If scroungers can't clean up the downed trees, how do they reduce the fuel loads?

Short answer: They don't. Targets are set for fuel reduction burning by Parks and Dept of Environment which are never met. The rules they have around when they can burn off are too stringent - certain moisture content of leaf litter, temperature, wind, humidity forecasted for the next week etc. They are so paranoid that one might get away that they don't do any burning at all when it is 20°C and still so what happens when we get a lightning strike when it's 40°C and windy ? A mushroom cloud you can see from Mars. Like you, I would have thought the humble scrounger could do some useful work in this regard but you're not allowed in almost all State forests and absolutely all National Parks .

 

[KiwiBro]

Short answer: They don't. Targets are set for fuel reduction burning by Parks and Dept of Environment which are never met. The rules they have around when they can burn off are too stringent - certain moisture content of leaf litter, temperature, wind, humidity forecasted for the next week etc. They are so paranoid that one might get away that they don't do any burning at all when it is 20°C and still so what happens when we get a lightning strike when it's 40°C and windy ? A mushroom cloud you can see from Mars. Like you, I would have thought the humble scrounger could do some useful work in this regard but you're not allowed in almost all State forests and absolutely all National Parks .

Sounds crazy.
A pity they can't be held personally accountable when the inevitable happens.

That said, I wonder how much of the fuel load is like you say, grass, leaf litter, scrub and what percentage would be economically-recoverable firewood. I guess they have to weigh up the risks of the scroungers they let in starting a fire or doing some other damage, against the potential fuel reduction of said scroungers. That aforementioned person who turned a blind eye to the volumes the good scroungers were taking out is doing his heroic bit as the thin sane line between faceless bureaucracy and the coal face.

 

[Deleted member 149229]

Paul Bunyan Festival was awesome. Tons of stuff to see, watch and buy. Christmas in October.

 

[bigfellascott]

Hey Cowboy can you just go in and take as much as you want in VIC or do you need a permit?
Is it state forest?

In NSW you need a permit and the $$ you pay is dependant on how much you want to cut, not sure about Vic but imagine it would be something similar.

 

[Cowboy254]

Sounds crazy.
A pity they can't be held personally accountable when the inevitable happens.

That said, I wonder how much of the fuel load is like you say, grass, leaf litter, scrub and what percentage would be economically-recoverable firewood. I guess they have to weigh up the risks of the scroungers they let in starting a fire or doing some other damage, against the potential fuel reduction of said scroungers. That aforementioned person who turned a blind eye to the volumes the good scroungers were taking out is doing his heroic bit as the thin sane line between faceless bureaucracy and the coal face.

In 2009 there were fires in our state that killed more than 100 people. One bloke had cleared 100m around his home the previous couple of years and got taken to court by the local government for illegal clearing and fined hundreds of thousands of dollars. When the fires went through, many people died or lost their homes but his home survived. The mayor and shire council had introduced regulations that disallowed even picking up of wood from the roadside for a firepit in the name of the environment and you should have seen them run like rabbits trying to evade scrutiny after the fires went through.

In 2003 we had a fire that started across the valley and burned more than 1 million hectares/2.5 million acres! Was a bit hairy for us for a little while but we were ok.

 

[KiwiBro]

Was that the "black Saturday" fire? I recall how one property owner who had defied local regs and bulldozed a fire break exposed how utterly stucking fupid the regs were. If the council is that worried about deforestation then by all means up the property size limits and lower the impermeable surface/building size limits but FFS allow people to protect themselves and their loved ones, especially in the face of clearly batshitcrazy policies that do nothing but lay a fuel path up to the boundaries of private property.

 

[Cowboy254]

Was that the "black Saturday" fire? I recall how one property owner who had defied local regs and bulldozed a fire break exposed how utterly stucking fupid the regs were. If the council is that worried about deforestation then by all means up the property size limits and lower the impermeable surface/building size limits but FFS allow people to protect themselves and their loved ones, especially in the face of clearly batshitcrazy council policies that do nothing but lay a fuel path up to the boundaries of private property.

I think that was the guy I was talking about.

2009 was the Black Saturday fire. We had two weeks of 38°C+ temps then a week of 40°C+ and the Saturday was 46°C (115°F) with howling dry northerlies. Wasn't pleasant. Fortunately for us, no fires came our way that time. The pics above were from 2003. We also had fires in 2006 that I could have thrown a rock into from our back fence but they were always on the 'right' side of us so we weren't really threatened, even if we were a bit uneasy.

 

[Deleted member 149229]

You guys have more stupid BS regulations than we do!

 

[KiwiBro]

Almost forgot to mention, Happy Bathurst Day.

 

[bigfellascott]

Almost forgot to mention, Happy Bathurst Day.

Yep it's a great Day, I'm just watching the pre race action at the moment, I live 40mins from Bathurst but I'd rather watch it on TV to be honest.

 

[MustangMike]

Mostly hardwoods around here, but we had a real dry spell about 20 years ago and there were a few out of control fires along the Hudson River, one was near West Point and started exploding old military shells that no one knew were there. I guess it had never happened like that before, because the unexploded ordinance had been fired from West Point and Cold Spring (they used to manufacture cannons) from the Revolutionary war through WWII. The "target" mountain was now hiking trails, that were subsequently closed for years till they could check and clear all the stuff.

The wife and I would go hiking, and watch the helicopters scoop water out of the Hudson and drop in on the fires. Went on all day long for about a week. (One fire was across from Cold Spring, near West Point, and the other was near Bear Mountain. Both fires were on the West side of the Hudson, so we hiked up Mountains on the East side of the Hudson to watch from across the River.

 

[MustangMike]

Used two of my recently built Asian Hybrids (440/460) to cut a bunch of the storm downed Hard Maple across the street from my Daughter. They don't burn wood, so my Daughter can take what she wants. Both saws (one w/28", one with 24") got some good break in time.