Shelf life of ash firewood?

So, say I’m already at the proverbial “3 years ahead” mark. And then say that between my neighbor and myself I’ve got another 3-5 years’ worth of dead ash trees that need to be dropped this fall or winter. Is there anything I should or shouldn’t do to make sure this wood is still in good shape in 8 years? Should I leave it in rounds until a year or 2 before I need to use it? I currently stack outside on pallets near the woods, but should I cover the top, or even the back side of the stack that will be facing the woods? Or will ash be fine in that amount of time as long as it’s off the ground? How long could the wood potentially stay usable, just in case I come across an easy score on oak or hard maple in the coming years?

Applesister said:

Right, the presence of rot will continue if left to the elements. It sounds like you will be married to just one woman there, having that much wood of one species. Why date others?
Emerald Ash Borer hasn't reached my area but as a tree hugger I would feel a civic duty to destroy what bugs I could. As soon as I could. I don't know if I'd go to the length of having a giant bonfire, though.

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I'm not complaining about being married to ash, it's a decent wood. But if someone is giving away oak or sugar maple close to me, I might try to grab some still.

There's not much I can do about the ash borer at this point, out of the 20 or so ash trees on my property, all but 2 are already dead, meaning the bug has moved on to something else (though I'm not sure what, since this county is pretty much cleaned out of live ash trees). When I bought the place 3 years ago the trees were already dying, so there wasn't much I could do proactively.