USFS: Leave Firewood at Home

It’s hunting season. You’re ready to take a week off for some grouse or woodcock hunting in the Allegheny National Forest (NF); maybe even a side trip for pheasants to a nearby State Game Lands. The camp is ready for a week of you and your friends. Bring your firearm; leave the firewood at home.

Leave your campfire wood at home! Dangerous insects are hitching rides inside firewood to new forests as people travel from their home to their recreation area and back. Collect or buy your firewood once you arrive at your hunting camp, be it a tent or a cabin. Firewood is available for purchase from local venders or for collection on the Allegheny NF. If you intend to collect more firewood on the Allegheny NF than needed solely for a campfire (for instance to stock up on firewood at your hunting camp), a fuelwood permit is necessary. Fuelwood permits for personal use are available at all Allegheny NF offices.

Protect the forest that provides habitat for wildlife by leaving your firewood at home.

Forest employees are particularly concerned now that a dangerous beetle has been discovered north of Pittsburgh and in eastern Ohio. The states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and southern Michigan have quarantines on the movement of firewood outside of those states. A quarantine means it is illegal to transport wood. Maryland has quarantine in some counties. The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture has quarantine on bringing any firewood into the state of Pennsylvania unless it is kiln-dried; the state has also quarantined the four counties of Beaver, Butler, Lawrence and Allegheny to prohibit the movement of any firewood out of those four counties.

The Allegheny NF has a Closure Order prohibiting the use of any firewood on the forest unless it originated in the four counties of Elk, Forest, McKean and Warren, or has been kiln-dried. An individual knowingly moving firewood from quarantine areas can be fined or sentenced to jail. Fines can reach $5,000.