All About Firewood

We all like to have a good time around a fire. It’s a great way to stay cozy on a crisp fall day or to sit around while toasting marshmallows.

Today, we’ll be teaching you all about how firewood is seasoned, how to choose the best firewood pieces, and how to properly store it. These tips will ensure your firewood is top notch for building bright and warm fires to make family memories around.

Choosing Firewood

Having properly seasoned firewood is our number 1 tip to starting your fire journey.

You should start with seasoned firewood. Seasoned firewood is easier to light, stays burning longer, produces less smoke, and burns brighter and hotter. Now you may ask, what does it mean for firewood to be seasoned? Well seasoned is just a fancy way of saying that the wood has been dried. After a tree is cut, we split it to make the seasoning process go by quicker and then leave it to dry for at least 6 months. Each piece is split and then cut into 12-16 inch pieces. If tested with a moisture reader, the moisture content for properly seasoned wood should be less than 20%. This makes the wood less likely to mold later on, which can be hazardous when burned.

There are a few things you can look for to check if your firewood is seasoned.

• dark/gray in color
• lighter in weight
• full of cracks
• when rapped together, they should make a hollow/sharp sound
• interior is white in appearance
• bark is peeling or loosely attached

The firewood that we sell here is all seasoned. We get the firewood from local sources (most of what we have now is from downed trees during Hurricane Matthew in 2016), and typically have red & white oak and maple wood. These are hardwoods and burn hot and for a long time with minimal sparks and smoke.

We also usually have hickory and pecan wood, which we keep in separate piles from our main hardwoods. Hickory and pecan wood is great for smoking. So if you’re planning on having a BBQ, you can request it instead of our normal hardwoods for the same cost!

Do not try burning materials other than firewood.  In Virginia Beach it is actually illegal to burn trash, pallets, construction debris, and yard clippings.

So now you know what kind of wood you should be looking for, now let’s talk about…

Storage

When you take home your firewood, you need to store it properly. We recommend storing firewood on a wooden pallet or stand. It’s best for it to be elevated off the ground. If raining, cover with a tarp to protect it from getting wet.

If you have any other fire questions or you know of some fire safety tips we missed, make sure to leave a comment below!

Authored by Katie Plummer , Jack Frost Director of Marketing and Communications