One hot stove with one little piece of wood

When we'd find some of the heavy pitch laden pine, we made it into kindling,
one of them with a few other small pieces of wood & we had a raging fire.
Great fires starters. Lots of energy in a small piece of wood.
I get a few pieces of spruce similar, but not as heavy & dense pitch.

I think it was two years ago or so I had an odd experience with pine . . . it too burned much different than normal -- it burned quite hot and long . . . in fact my buddy started calling it diesel wood for the intense heat and length of burn (not to mention the black smoke that was coming off it despite it being several years old.)

The back story is that this was from a large eastern white pine that I had bucked up years ago and then tossed on a brush pile fire (this was in my pre-woodstove days). Needless to say the large bucked up wood didn't so much burn as it was scorched and cindered up. I had pretty much rolled the wood off to the side until I started to burn wood and figured I would split the wood up and burn it.

As I said the wood was still solid and burned like a phoenix in the flames . . . all I can think is that the act of scorching the wood might have caused the pitch to condense and not escape from the wood . . . kind of like when you boil out the water to make maple syrup or sugar out of sugar cane.

I think that is what they call "lighter knot." It seems to occur in the lower few feet pine trees that die and stand for a period of time. I assume the pitch from the entire tree collects at the bottom of the tree after it dies by the same process that allows water to travel up a live tree, plus the aid of gravity. It's incredible stuff though. Like you indicated, it burns like it's soaked with fuel (black smoke).

"Lightered" was also used extensively for ship planking in the old days and referred to pitch saturated Longleaf Yellow pine. Around here, old recovered wainscote and other woodwork is called "hard Pine" by old timers, and has similar characteristics.

Ehouse

i have a bunch of pine like that in my pile. the cat and wife love how warm the room gets with a couple pieces 'roaring'

Yea i was gonna say, i bet it was pine and a piece that was filled with resin. I use it for kindling, starting and restarting as its full of flamable resin.

I think this thread describes what is also called "Fatwood" . I use it all the time.

http://www.fatwood.com/what-is-fatwood/

JotulOwner said:

I think this thread describes what is also called "Fatwood" . I use it all the time.

http://www.fatwood.com/what-is-fatwood/

Click to expand...

Nice reference, thanks.

But I have to say that I get a real chuckle out of " it is made from splitting the stumps of pine trees that contain a high concentration of natural resin. As the stumpwood hardens over time, the resin or sap concentrates to create an all-natural, 100% organic, chemical-free fire starter." Resin IS a chemical! These people just plain amaze me!

Ken