Forest fire trees

[Chainsawpastor]

Curious if anyone has cut any trees following a forest fire? We had a huge fire in 2012 that left tons of dead standing trees. There's lots of oak and some ash in amongst the cedars and I'd like to start getting some of that for firewood. I usually use full chisel chain but was wondering about getting some semi chisel for what I assume will be a little more abrasive environment when I have to cut where the outside has been charred. Just curious if anyone else has any experience with this.

 

[jacob j.]

Chisel chain should be fine if the wood is just charred and hasn't been subjected to other contamination like volcanic ash or dust. What's really hard on saws in the forest fire environment is the ash and dust getting sucked into the air filter, so make sure your filters are in top notch condition. I worked in fire for 21 seasons and we usually just ran whatever stock air filter set-up came on the saw. Make sure you know who the landowner is for the area where you're cutting and if it's state or federal land, that you have a current wood permit of some sort.

 

[Chainsawpastor]

Chisel chain should be fine if the wood is just charred and hasn't been subjected to other contamination like volcanic ash or dust. What's really hard on saws in the forest fire environment is the ash and dust getting sucked into the air filter, so make sure your filters are in top notch condition. I worked in fire for 21 seasons and we usually just ran whatever stock air filter set-up came on the saw. Make sure you know who the landowner is for the area where you're cutting and if it's state or federal land, that you have a current wood permit of some sort.

Thanks for your reply and your time in the fire service. I'm a captain on our volunteer dept and we do a lot of tree cutting in canyon fire situations so I know exactly what you mean about the air filters. In this scenario, I have permission from the landowner and the fire was several years ago so ash isn't as big of a concern. We use chisel on our Fire dept saws but we're only concerned about getting them on the ground not cutting for firewood so was just wondering about going semi chisel since I'll be going through the charr repetitively.

 

[Nutball]

I have wondered about cutting charcoal too. I figure carbide would be a safe bet.