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What You Can Do

Don't risk starting a new infestation of an invasive insect or disease.

 

You have the power to save trees.

Don't take firewood with you on your camping trip, RV adventure, or up to your hunting camp. Don't bring firewood back from your second home to your place in the suburbs. Don't bring it with you on your scout's camping trip. Instead, buy it where you'll burn it.

 

You can still have a roaring campfire, or a cozy night in front of the fireplace, if you just know how to burn safe.

 

• Buy firewood near where you will burn it- that means the wood was cut within 50 miles of where you'll have your fire
• Wood that looks clean and healthy can still have tiny insect eggs, or microscopic fungi spores, that will start a new and deadly infestation. Always leave it at home, even if you think the firewood looks fine.
• Aged or seasoned wood is still not safe. Just because it is dry doesn't mean that bugs can't crawl onto it!
• Tell your friends not to bring wood with them- everyone needs to know that they should not move firewood.

Burning safe protects everyone- from mountain bikers to hunters, birdwatchers to ATV riders- your family, and ours.

But how can firewood have anything to do with something like mountain biking? We are all careful to extinguish campfires, pick up after ourselves in campgrounds, state parks and national parks, so we should also be conscientious outdoor sports enthusiasts when it comes to moving firewood.

Aside from jumping over a few firewood logs, mountain biking and mountain bikers don’t spend a lot of time thinking about firewood. Neither do rock climbers or hikers. But outdoor activities like Mountain biking, hiking, rock climbing all depend on healthy forests. What fun would hiking be if all you hiked through was a forest of tree stumps? Or all your mountain biking or rock climbing was in a former forest?

Moving firewood when you mountain bike, hike, go for a hunting trip or take the RV out for a week or two puts our forests in danger. Bringing firewood when camping means you risk carrying tree-eating insects with you inside the firewood. The bugs can crawl out, spread to the trees and forest at the campground or state or national park, and begin to destroy those trees and forests. That means less fun for future outdoor enthusiasts like you.

What can you do to stop the spread of invasive pests on firewood? Tell your friends not to move firewood, especially when camping, hunting, biking, or hiking. Ideally, your firewood should be from only a few miles away, or at least in the same county. More broadly, if your firewood dealer is getting wood from up to 50 miles away, that is still considered "OK."

The price of wood varies a lot, and you might wonder how to find the best firewood prices at your final destination. Call ahead to where you are going for a suggestion of a reasonably priced firewood dealer. You'll save time, money, and help protect trees when you buy firewood from a local firewood dealer.