Western red cedar

[Riteway]

I live in a heavily-wooded neighborhood in Western WA state and hardly anyone burns wood for heat, so I don't have too much trouble tracking down free firewood and thus can afford to be little picky. Does anybody here burn Western red cedar in their stove? I've always avoided it for campfire wood, because it sparks so much. I've been passing up free cedar rounds so far, but maybe I should be grabbing those. FYI- around here the "top dogs" for firewood tend to be Douglas fir, Western hemlock, red alder, big leaf maple, and Pacific madrone

 

[begreen]

It's not bad for fall/spring fires but burns up quickly. Thicker splits can help slow it down. And yes, it can spark and shoot embers a good distance.

 

[GadDummit]

If you run a fireplace, run from it or bury it under something else that doesn't spark. If you bury it it's less likely to shoot sparks out the fireplace and into your couch while you're snuggling with the wife. A fire on the couch is a big mood killer.
If you have a stove instead, get all of it you can. It's fast and hot so it'll warm the room and the stove fast, then you can add hardwoods to make the warmth last.
My 2 cents.

 

[Highbeam]

I’ve actually burned many cords of straight western red cedar. These trees are huge and I couldn’t stand to waste that much wood when we had some blow over in a storm. Cedar varies a lot across the country with lots of old wives tales.

When you split it like regular firewood and burn it in a stove it is not very “sparky”. Don’t know why. Regardless, sparks are okay in a stove. Do split it large because it’s a lighter weight wood. What I don’t like about wrc is the high rate of soot accumulation in the flue. Otherwise it burns just fine. Both of my chimneys had a heavy layer of brown soot in them that was not typical. It was light and fluffy like diesel exhaust soot. I would avoid cedar because of this.

Finally, hemlock is a much worse wood than maple, fir, alder which are the big 3 in our area. Hemlock is lightweight and has less heat per cord.