Fire up the saw, head for the woods
Make like Paul Bunyan and gather up some firewood
Published: November 01. 2001 4:00AM PST
There's something mildly heroic about cutting your own firewood.
Like returning from a fishing trip with a mess of catfish or overloading family and friends with a bumper crop of zucchini, pulling up the driveway with a half-cord of tidily stacked lodgepoles in the truck bed is good for the soul.
So is the process.
You don your Pendleton plaid (even if you never wear plaid), congratulate yourself on owning a pickup and rumble off for the woods.
You cruise the dirt roads within your chosen woodcutting unit, searching for sizable specimens among the litter of spindly, picked-over junk. You get a for-real rush of adrenaline when you bump over a spur road that really is no road at all and finally find what you came for: downed pines fat enough for firewood and close enough to load right up.
Then you fire up the saw and start cutting, leaving a trail of beefy 18-inch chunks in your wake. You toss them into the back of your rig, then stack them carefully for the return journey.
It's been said that wood procured in this manner warms you twice - once when you cut it and again when it goes into stove or fireplace. Add stacking and splitting and these logs earn their keep.
There is some bureaucracy you'll need to deal with but compared to the rewards, both psychic and tangible, it's really no sweat.
Basically, you have to buy a permit from the Forest Service to cut within two dozen cutting areas in Central Oregon. Each household can buy up to eight cords of wood for personal use at $10 a cord. You have to have your permit in possession when you're cutting wood; loads must be tagged before you leave the cutting area.
In addition, woodcutters must carry a long-handled, round-point shovel with an 8-inch blade as well as a fire extinguisher into the forest (during periods of high wildfire hazard, requirements stiffen).
All regulations and detailed maps of the cutting areas are contained in the "2001 Central Oregon Personal Use Firewood Synopsis and Maps" guide that the friendly Forest Service representative will give you along with your permit.
The woodcutting season closes Nov. 30, but snowfall may render the deadline moot.
Map Guy and I headed for the woods one recent Friday with two pickups and two saws and two woodpiles to build.
We drove in to the 3,300-acre McKay unit, about 20 miles south of Bend, and spent a good hour nosing down faint, double-track trails strewed with slash and maneuvering around poorly placed lodegepoles growing right where the rear-end needed to go if we were even going to think about turning around.
Then we found it - down one of those dead-end ruts - a woodcutter's Valhalla, a log hunter's heaven.
The downed trunks had the girth the guys out on the well-traveled roads could only dream of and what's more, they were close.
So we whistled and worked and made some wood. And when we finished, we had two pickup loads of fresh-cut stove wood and that self-satisfied feeling that can only come after the job's all done.
And there's nothing that beats that bringing-home-the-bacon glow when you get the wood stacked and split. Even if your family can't stop talking about the neighbor's zucchini.
Chain saws are safe if handled properly. But they're made to make short work of trees, and operated carelessly, they can make short work of human flesh and bone.
Kickback is probably the No. 1 safety concern. It can happen when the nose or tip of the bar touches an object or when the wood closes in and pinches the saw chain inside the cut.
Tip contact can cause the saw to buck back and up at the operator. Pinching the saw chain along the top of the bar can push the bar rapidly back toward the operator.
To avoid both kickback and pinching, the Stihl company recommends keeping a firm grip on the saw with both hands, the right hand on the rear handle and the left hand on the front handle. Make sure the area where you are cutting is free of obstructions and don't let the nose of the saw hit a log or branch.
In addition, the chain saw manufacturer suggests cutting at high engine speeds and cutting below shoulder height.
Other basic chain saw safety precautions include:
- Never operate a chain saw with one hand.
- It's a good idea to wear snug-fitting clothing, gloves as well as eye, hearing and head protection devices. Leg chaps, made of ballistic nylon, can prevent injury.
- Use caution when handling fuel. Stihl recommends moving the saw at least 10 feet from the fueling area before starting the engine.
- Keep other people and animals away when you start the chain saw and when you're working.
- Don't begin cutting until the work area is clear, footing is secure and you've planned a path of retreat from a falling tree.
- Before you start the engine, make sure the saw chain is not touching anything.
- Always carry the chain saw with the engine stopped, the guide bar and saw chain to the rear, and the muffler away from your body.
- Shut off the engine before setting the chain saw down.
- Exercise caution when cutting small brush and saplings because thin branches can catch the saw chain and whip toward you or pull you off-balance.
- When cutting a limb under tension, be aware that it could spring back at you when the tension is released.
- GETTING THERE: You'll get a map of firewood cutting areas with your woodcutting permit from the Forest Service. To get to the McKay Unit from Bend, drive south on Highway 97 about 17 miles to Forest Road 9725 on the left. Travel east on 9725 about two miles to Road 9730. Go southeast on 9730 about 2› miles to the cutting area, which is well-marked.
- ACCESS: High-clearance, 4-wheel-drive vehicles.
- PERMITS: Available at Deschutes National Forest office in Bend, 383-5300; BLM office in Prineville, 416-6700; and Ochoco National Forest office in Prineville, 416-6500. Each household may purchase up to eight cords of personal-use firewood at $10 a cord.
Jim Witty can be reached at 541-617-7828 or jwitty@bendbulletin.com.
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