Often times, the big wildfires you see in Cali, largely consist of hillsides full of manzanita. Most people don't even think of it as firewood, but it's among the best IMO. It gets kind of a bad rap, some people think it's dangerous to burn. It's actually quite safe as long as you don't load the whole woodstove with it...it's one of those species that just a couple of small splits or rounds goes a lonnnnnng way. You load the whole firebox up with it and you're liable to start your house on fire.
I too like the scrounges that don't require stacking. I like cutting trees down, I like cutting them up, and I don't even mind splitting the wood...however, I really don't enjoy stacking firewood into neat little rows...just too tedious for me and then I'll just have to wheelbarrow it over to the house at a later date. This stuff, I backed my truck up to my front porch, brought the splitter over with my other truck, and split it right there in front of the porch. Loosely/haphazardly stacked on my firewood rack that's on the porch...done deal.
Wow, I bet that holds good coals for a long time and could restart another fire if not taken care of/if the wind kicked up.
The fire out back was going all night through rain and snow, this morning the wind started blowing and and it kicked right back up, seems that would happen there too.
When my neighbor moved in he used to be quite concerned with my 10-20' tall fires, he lived in Southern Cali for a bit, he talked to me a few times about it. Glad he trusted me and didn't ever call the fire department.
I do like my fires
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When I first got my woodstove I chocked it full of box elder, which is considered a trash wood and in the Maple family(most don't know this), while it isn't the best, once it's dry it burns very hot and mybstove was blazing
. It probably wasn't as bad as I thought, but it was the hottest I had ever seen it. I never made that mistake again
.
It sure is nice to be able to save a step when possible. I don't mind a bit of work, but I also see no reason to do more just because lol.
As far as stacking, it's nice that I have concrete on the floor of the woodshed where I stack mine and can bring it right to the woodshed with the tractor after loading it right off the wood splitter. That makes it nicer and saves a couple steps, it's nice that my time splitting and my time stacking gets broke up a bit, takes some of the monotony of it out.
You can see in my picture I didn't even split these rounds(saving a step lol), I just figured I'd bring a few splits in to mix with the bigger ones if needed.
Should get some more out of the cherry, I'll have to leave that piled up somewhere as I also have the wheelbarrow inside full of the deadwood. That will be great to get us thru the shoulder season.
lol, (about 6-7 miles from our house, and 2500’ higher elevation).
Going to be few more weeks yet this year. Been a great winter for snowmobiling this year though
.png "Love :heart:")
snowy, mtn pix above the treeline! ~
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