Fat lighter pine? Is all pine fat lighter?

[meanwhile]

Is all pine Fat Lighter? Or is it only the red looking pine? Or the dark brown red looking pine?

Last year a woman gave us a few chunks of pine that she said was "fat lighter" but when we split it, then it was just light weight and yellow. It was pine and it did burn good since it was pine. We want to get "fat lighter" pine to use to start the wood stoves since we will have to burn mostly green wood this winter. We are collecting sticks to use for kindling too but want some fat lighter too.

Is it safe to use the yellow pine too or should we try to find the brownish-red pine? Thank you.

[wy_white_wolf]

Fatwood - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[haypoint]

I cooked on a wood cook stove for nearly 30 years and intend to start again soon.
In addition to cooking, I used it for morning warm ups and cool evenings in a climate much colder than yours. Never needed pine fat lighter.

Cook stoves like small wood. if you get right at it, your cook stove wood will be dry by fall, as long as everything is split at least once.

One year a company opened up making wood pieces for window frames. They had to use clear wood. So, they cut out all the knots and finger jointed the boards. I hauled a few truck loads of spruce knots. Lots of heat from those kiln dried pieces.

The tree varieties up north are so different, I can't recommend much. Old fence posts made from White Cedar can be split up to make kindling. Worthless Poplar or Aspen can be split up small and make fire starting easier. Dries fast, too.
I believe some varieties of pine have oils that make an easy flame, but they are pricy. But I see them as fancy bundles.
Should be lots of Oak if you are near Lake Lure or Chimney Rock. Every piece of clear (no knots) you get, split it into pieces less than an inch across. By fall, it'll be easy to start a fire.

[Forestdude]

Well, what makes lighter pine good vs. so-so is the amount of rosin in it. The pine rosin is what makes big flames and puts off that black tire-burning type smoke. The richer it is the better and less amount is needed to start your fire. Longleaf pine stumps are by far the #1 best source of lighter pine, due to the fact that the tree produces so much rosin. (And also why red-cockaded most always nest in these type pines, because the heavy rosin that seeps out deters the climbing critters from getting to the nest cavity). We’re blessed to have plenty of old longleaf stumps here from when this whole area was clearcut 70+ years ago. Those old stumps are solid as a rock and heavy as one too. I’m always keeping a lookout on the forest for a quality stump. But to answer your question, yes, pines over there in W NC have rosin and if dried will burn like mad too. Especially where the high concentrations of rosin are such as branch unions and catfaces. But, unfortunately, I wouldn’t quite consider most of it “fatwood”, (though some do market is as so), mainly because it ain’t fat with the rosin. Hope this helps, and if anyone is considering purchasing fatwood, just know that much of that stuff isn’t that “fat”, though it’ll still burn. Hope this helps

[Ozarks Tom]

We've been using fatwood for years and love it. It'll get fires started in our fireplace with just 3 small pieces under some kindling every time. If you have access to a pine stump, pull it, cut short pieces, split them down to pencil size. You know you have a good stump when you can smell the resin.

If you don't have a way to pull a stump, Plow & Hearth sells 35 lb boxes for $29 + frt.

[Ravenlost]

My favorite Christmas gift every year is the big box of fatwood my Mama splits up for me. It smells so good and makes starting a fire so easy!

[RebelDigger]

Pine knots have concentrations of resin too. If you get a piece of pine with a lot of knots in it, you can use them for starting fires. I have mostly done this with yellow pine.

[texican]

Pine "knots" are getting harder and harder to come by... commercial forests are getting turned into tree farms, and those trees don't live long enough to make good lighter wood. Nearby commercial forest 'converted' a decade ago, and I went and collected trailer loads of it.

In my own forest, if a pine tree dies and isn't straight enough for a sawlog, I let it rot in the woods, the ----------s will make a home in them for three to five years, then it falls to the ground, and in another four or five years, all the sapwood rots off, and then you have a ghostly stem of a tree, nothing but lighter pine. "Bull" pines make great lighter wood (they grow out in the open, and get big with lots of limbs... all those junctions are rich in rosin.

You can burn green wood if you have a pine knot on the bottom of the fire.

[meanwhile]

Thank you everyone! After I posted this a Tree Service friend told us he will give the boys a load of what he called Fat Pine. I don't know if it will all be good Fat but surely some of it will be. Also, we found a downed pine behind the barn and the boys started chopping on it too.

Thank you! We will be burning mostly green firewood this year and will need both kindling and the Fat Pine. Thanks!

[Vickie44]

Split your wood now and it wont be green by winter

[meanwhile]

Vickie44: We have split it but some was just freshly cut and so it will not be "cured" good. We are hoping a friend will give us a couple of logs that have been down for two years. They are oak and will be good. Thank you.

[Bentley]

In this area of central Louisiana, fat pine (or rich lighter) stumps are used for starting fires under huge mountains of brush when land is cleared. We usually use a trackhoe to dig a large pit, chunk a couple of logs in the bottom, toss a fat pine stump in, and shove the brush, limbs, logs, etc..on top. The fire is started with a little diesel, and when the stumps catch, it's just a matter of time. When we used to clear pipeline right of way, we would run a 10" pipe into the bottom of the pit, and connect it to a diesel engine driven blower.

Talk about a hot fire, plus we could burn brush as fast as we could shove it in with a Cat D7.

I cleared 4 acres here where we built our home, and still have enough fat pine stumps to last 3 lifetimes.

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