Amber Sprinkle, Westside Forest Products Manager: Welcome to the Mt. Hood National Forest Personal
Use firewood video. In this video we're going to talk a little bit about how to get a permit
and what some of the rules and restrictions are under your permit. This video will help
you understand a little bit about our personal use firewood program on the Mt. Hood National
Forest. The firewood program on the Mt. Hood National Forest opens some time in the Spring
and closes on November 30th of that year. You can get your firewood permit at any of
our district offices and permits are a minimum of $20 and each cord costs $10. Your weekly
information sheet is available at your local district office or you go on our website and
print it off from home. So if you already have your firewood permit for the year and
if you have 5 cords purchased and you want to go out and cut wood, you don't have to
come to the front office to get your weekly information sheet. You can print it out from
your own computer at home. Our firewood program is fairly variable in terms of what's available
for wood cutting: where you can and cannot cut. So this is an example of firewood that's
available within a road prism. Here we have a roadway, a roadside ditch, and a road within
a ditch, which would be considered available within a road prism. A lot of our forest roads
are open to firewood cutting within the road prism and within 100 feet of the roadside.
You'd have to refer to your weekly information sheet for more information on what's available
for your district you're wanting to cut on. Behind me is a perfect example of trees that
are on the ground within 100 feet of the open road and they actually have signs on them
that say no woodcutting. So these are examples of down woody material that your firewood
information sheet may say is available but when you get out here you'll see there are
signs on these logs that say no woodcutting. The no woodcutting sign on the down log may
tell you more information about why you should not cut on that log. For instance, these down
logs are not authorized for woodcutting because they will be used in stream rehabilitation
projects on the Forest. So under your firewood permit, it's not authorized to cut or remove
timber or firewood within a timber sale area. And so if you're not sure how to identify
a timber sale area, there is an example of one behind me. This tree is painted and is
a part of the timber sale area so if there is any down wood along places that look like
this, you should not remove the down wood with your permit. In addition to painted trees,
other identifiers for timber sale areas are blue boundary tags that say boundary cutting
unit boundary, or subdivision boundary. And orange tags with that and paint and flagging.
This is another example of a timber sale unit boundary. This one is pretty old. It can take
a few years for an entire timber sale to be harvest and completed. So even though it looks
old and this log deck is old, it's still not authorized to cut on unless it indicates in
your weekly information sheet that it's an allowable place to go to. This is an example
of a slash pile that is left over after a timber sale unit has been harvested. Ocassionaly
opportunities for slash piles are available in your weekly information sheet and open
to firewood cutting. One thing you should remember when your cutting on a slash pile
is that they can be unstable, so you should use caution. And it's important to try to
maintain the overall structure of the slash pile and not pull things from the middle of
the slash pile, ultimately ripping it apart. If there is plastic on the slash pile we ask
that you leave it in place and make sure you don't remove the material over the plastic
so it doesn't blow away. Another thing thing to consider under your firewood permit are
IFPL restrictions. IFPL stands for Industrial Fire Precaution Level. And that level varies
during the firewood cutting season depending on local weather conditions. The IFPL is used
to help manage the risk of fires started from firewood cutting activities or use of a chainsaw
as it relates to the firewood permit. To find out what the IFPL is on your unit you can
call the phone number on your weekly information sheet or you can also get the information
off of our website. If you call that phone number in the morning before you leave to go wood
cutting you'll have the most up to date IFPL information. (Music) Amber: "My name is Amber
Sprinkle. Hi! I'm the firewood coordinator on the district." (Chainsaw).
Thank you for watching the Mt. Hood National Forest personal use firewood program video. We hope you a
fun and safe firewood season and if you have any other questions you can contact any of
our forest district offices or you can visit our website.