The entire West runs on lodgepole/Ponderosa pine, Douglas fir, cedar/juniper, and Spruce. Most folks here would laugh at such a statement if they heard an Easterner say it fireside out here. Then they'd sit you outside to smarten you up a bit.
Again, I noted it's safe. Just undesirable, as it takes up the same amount of time and space as our other more prevalent woods of much higher BTU content. Who's going to make time and space for cedar, when we have tens of millions of standing dead ash and oak all around us?
But to use your unnecessarily confrontational language: If you honestly believe that convincing any "easterner" to pass up oak, and to burn pine is going actually "smarten" them up, then they'd be the one laughing at you. Have you even looked at the comparative BTU content? Honestly, stupid statement.
It might be one thing if we actually HAD more pine than hardwood, there might be
some merit in actually using it. But we don't, at least in this region. As an exercise, I just did a quick count of the trees on my own property:
Hardwood: Roughly 200 trees. I honestly stopped counting at 120 and was only about half way thru. Prevalence in order of descending numbers is walnut, ash, oak, maple, hickory, mulberry, hackberry, cherry, other. Oak and ash were close enough in count that I might have them reversed, debatable, but walnut is clear majority in this neighborhood.
Pine:
1 stinkin' tree. Used to have two, but one died due to disease about five years ago. So, your noble pine makes up 0.5% of the trees on my property. In fairness, "Pennsylvania pine" was once a thing, so there's at least one variety that grows in PA, but I think it was all at higher elevations (Pocono / Appalachian mountains), not the foothills that dot the southeastern part of the state.
Doug Fir:
Zero native, but I planted 8 in the few areas far from any walnut trees. They are completely incompatible with walnut, so they don't naturally do well in much of our area, where walnut is so prevalent. Walnut will always dominate, and the juglone they put into the soil will kill many non-native things trying to grow under them.
Cypress:
Zero native. I planted a dozen, they
all died due to fungus (needle cast). I tried treating them, and kept a few of them going longer than I should ($$$$), they're just too susceptible to disease in our climate.
Hemlock: Zero native, although I know hemlock does grow in this area, again north and west (Poconos). I planted 40, most are surviving, but they are extremely susceptible to one of our local pests if not treated. They're also too fragile, several have been completely crushed or snapped off their trunks when branches from other trees fall on them.
Juniper: I don't think I've ever seen a Juniper out here.
Cedar: We have a lot of these, Eastern Red Cedar, but only in very young woods or on the edges of fields. They're the first thing to pop up when a field is left dormant, but they die off after the hardwoods shade them out in a mature woods, and they also fall over in our heavy winter snows if not held up by each other in a cluster. I have a few skirting the woods that lie at my property lines, but they're always falling over and uprooting themselves in winter storms. Their BTU content appears to be only slightly higher than corn puffs, but they make good kindling, and they're a useful aid for burning down coal build-up when burning oak or hickory.