The wood you burn affects flavor, heat and safety. Choose dry, local firewood, skip anything treated or painted, and leave your own firewood at home.
Before species, think about moisture. Dry, seasoned wood lights more easily, burns cleaner and produces less smoke than wood that is freshly cut. Wet wood hisses, sputters and smolders, which flavors food unpleasantly and wastes your time.
One practical warning: green or damp lumber can pop and throw sparks. If you buy a bundle, check that it feels light and sounds hollow when two pieces are knocked together, and keep it covered until you need it.
Store wood off the ground and under cover when you can. A tarp over a stack keeps rain and dew out, and a pallet or a few logs underneath keep moisture from wicking up. Even a short rainstorm can make unprotected wood hard to light.
If you must buy wood from a gas station or store, look at the label for information about where it was cut and whether it was kiln-dried or heat-treated. Reputable sellers usually say. Wood sold in tidy bundles is often drier than loose wood, though the best test is still the weight and the sound.
In general, dense hardwoods such as oak, hickory and maple are favored for cooking. They tend to burn longer and leave a deeper bed of coals, which suits grates, pie irons and long cooks. Softwoods such as pine and fir light easily and burn fast, which makes them useful as kindling but less steady for cooking.
Which species are available depends on where you are, and local wood is the best choice for another reason, explained below. Treat this guidance as a general rule, because a well-seasoned piece of any local wood is better than poorly dried wood of a prized species.
Fruit and nut woods are often mentioned for flavor in cooking contexts, and some campers enjoy the aroma. Availability, cost and local rules matter more than a perfect pairing, so use what is legal, dry and close at hand.
Do not burn pressure-treated or preservative-treated wood. The Forest Service says treated wood should not be burned in open fires, stoves or fireplaces, because toxic chemicals may be produced as part of the smoke and ashes. That covers scrap lumber from decks and fences, and the same caution makes sense for painted or finished boards and pallets of unknown origin.
Smokey Bear guidance also warns against burning trash, aerosols, pressurized containers, batteries, glass or aluminum. Cooking food over fumes from those materials is a bad idea whatever the source. Stick to plain, untreated firewood.
Be skeptical of driftwood and reclaimed lumber. Without knowing where it came from, you cannot be sure what is on it, and some beach or dock wood has been treated. When the source is unknown, leave it out of a cooking fire.
Firewood can carry invasive insects and diseases. The National Park Service notes that live wood-boring beetles, insect eggs and fungal spores can hide in wood that looks healthy, and that these pests can travel hundreds of miles inside a bundle of firewood carried in a car or RV. Local forests often have few defenses against them.
The message from the Don't Move Firewood campaign is simple: buy it where you burn it.
The Park Service suggests buying firewood within about 10 miles of where you will burn it, and treats 50 miles as generally too far. Certified heat-treated wood carrying a USDA APHIS or state seal is considered safe to move, but if you cannot confirm it is certified, buy locally.
Do not carry leftover wood home. Leave it at the campsite or with a camp host. Check the park website or recreation.gov for firewood rules, whether collecting is allowed and where to buy wood nearby.
If you are traveling through several areas, remember that rules can differ along the way. Some states and regions publish their own firewood regulations, so check before crossing a boundary with any wood in the vehicle.
Once you have good wood, arrange it well with teepee and log cabin layouts, and wait for coals before cooking. Whether campfires are allowed at all is covered in fire restrictions and burn bans.
A fire starter helps with dry wood, and our fire tools and starter kits line is meant to make that first step simpler.
Cook over coals, not flames. Coals radiate steady heat, and a thin cloud of smoke gives a pleasant background flavor to food. Heavy, billowing smoke does the opposite, so if a fire is smoking badly, wait for it to settle before you start.
Add a log now and then to keep coals fresh, and push them to one side to create a hot zone and a cooler zone. A two-zone fire gives you a place to sear and a place to hold food warm. A long-handled poker makes that job safe.
Keep food off the burning wood itself, and use clean utensils. Resin pockets and bark can flare, so avoid roasting directly in flaming sections.
Where you may gather wood depends on the land manager. Some areas allow collecting dead and downed wood, some require a permit and some ban collecting entirely. Smokey Bear guidance says never to cut whole trees or branches, dead or alive.
At many campgrounds the simplest route is to buy bundles from the camp store or a nearby vendor. That fits the buy-it-where-you-burn-it rule, and it spares you from hunting for dry wood after a long drive. Ask your host about local sellers and rules.
Dry, seasoned hardwood is generally preferred for steady coals, but any dry, untreated local wood beats wet wood.
The Forest Service says burning treated wood can produce toxic chemicals in smoke and ashes.
It can carry invasive pests and diseases. Buy it where you burn it.
Not unless you know exactly what the wood is. Treated or finished wood should not go in a campfire.
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