Milled forest fire trees?

[OlJarhead]

One thing I've been thinking about it milling trees burned in the last big fire.  At first I thought "can't be that much different other than the mess" but it occurred to me that I ought to check and see if anyone here has experience milling wildfire burned trees?

[pa_of_6]

Milling of fire killed logs have their limitation.

Biggest thing to consider is how long they have been standing since the fire went thru.

After they burn, and depending on how black they got, they start to dry out.

The heat of the sun on that black dries them out pretty fast and you will get a lot of cracking.

When I milled about a quarter million feet of them, we ended up slabbing the four sides and selling them as timbers.

The cracks went deep and there was no salvage for planks.

Just my experience.

[OlJarhead]

Thanks -- I was wondering about that.

So for timbers they will work ok if standing very long but not much else?

I'm guessing a lot of the trees will be last summers burn so maybe not too bad just yet?

Is it best to have them felled right away?

[pa_of_6]

When you go and have a look at them, check them for the cracks.

It doesn't take long for that "case hardening" action to happen.
The outside dries fast and shrinks causing the inside wet wood to compress....then BANG...the pressure gets so huge in the inside the shell finally cracks!

Black logs in the hot sun...they can reach some pretty high temps...and dry unbelievably quick!

And even falling and handling them may cause them to crack if there is that inside pressure

Bid on timbers and if you get other than timbers consider yourself lucky!

[beenthere]

Being as you are in the burned over area, likely there are some salvage operations going on throughout this winter season. But expect they won't be much interested during the summer unless just in a 'clean-up' mode and getting "free" gov't money.
As pa_of_6 mentioned, time drying out is the enemy for good material recovery.

But then it may be worthwhile running some of those logs through your mill to see just what's up and what's inside of the burned timber. Size of log may be a big factor, and just stay away from the smaller diameters.

Felling early will not likely stop the drying degrade. Doubtful you'd have access to a pond to store them in the interim.

Which leads to the question, are you interested in sawing logs for yourself, or sawing logs for others who have the burned timber?

[OlJarhead]

I'm interested because I've had some calls to mill burned trees though I haven't done any yet.

Truthfully I'd rather only tackle non-burned trees but if someone wants to see what they can get I'd prefer to be armed with some info first.

[woodyone.john]

charcoal is quite abrasive,expect to get through more blades.

[ST Ranch]

Eric - yes you can mill burnt logs. Agree with above posts - good comments

However IMO you may find it frustrating because of the variability in the damage to each log you get.
Bark thickness, rate of growth [ring density], species [say  P-pine vs Lp-pine], degree of burn [slow moving fire vs fast] etc will effect each tree differently and therefore hard to predict recovery [lumber vs cant] until you open each log.

Also at this time of year, checks in the logs are hard to see because trees have absorbed water and sometimes closed the check - when it warms and drys out these open up

So keep in mind, if you are looking at any logs in this weather, ckecks may be harder to see visually.

Also recommend doing some test runs on an hourly rate to see level of recovery.

One last point - air filters on motors need continual changing - might even add a secondary pre-filter for said jobs.
Tom

[OlJarhead]

Thanks for the reply.  On my little mill I run hourly only.

If and when I get a bigger mill (crossing fingers it will be this year) I'll consider bf rates depending on the job but for now it's all hourly.

[beenthere]

Your hourly rate should do nicely, but I'd add a bit to it for the black mess over everything.. you included.
But set some minimum... as the customer may not want to continue after some initial cutting... just sayin. Been to a few mills cutting burned timber.. (Yellowstone fire that made it over the divide into Wyoming was but one of them)... and the charcoal on "everything" was a sight to see. Even the debarkers didn't get the logs free of charcoal..

[Deese]

I sawed a ERC that was killed in a fire and was left standing for at least a year. It was charred black and had dried badly and cracked in a few spots. But I still managed to get some short boards out if it  ;D



  

 

[valley ranch]

That's some nice looking lumber!

[justallan1]

Eric, the fires in 2012 are why I bought my first mill and between scorched power poles and fire killed pine it paid for itself pretty fast.
You'll just have to check where it's at and how they were burned. The fires here were traveling fast and just scorched the trees to the point of killing them, rarely burning through the bark. The trees 2' and under were pretty punky as of last summer and are just starting to snap of in the wind. In the fall I fell some up on the mountain that were 3' and they were still fine and plenty solid.
Felling them can be spooky though. Watch out for widowmakers and when the thing hits the ground limbs are going to fly 50 times worse than a live tree. You'd thought there was dynamite in them.
I would definitely show your customer what it looks like before milling to much and let them decide.

[pa_of_6]

All good comments

Definitely set a minimum charge tho....
And remember your services are for sale....not on sale!

[OlJarhead]

Much of the fires here were 'storms' moving as fast as 60mph at times (yes scary) so who knows.  I've seen some trees burned up pretty bad while others didn't seem to badly damaged so there is hope perhaps.

Had a potential customer with 60 trees reach out to me this morning.  All burned in the fires last August/September.  I'll get more information and plan a visit to check out what they have.  Assuming standard taper, 18" at chest height and 2.5 16' logs they would run around 274bf ea (international) so could yield around 16000bf.  With an LT35 running 300bf/hr that's about a weeks worth of milling.  Assuming, of course, the above and that they were not split already and one was willing to mill for a week straight in a charcoal factory.

The wife started asking me about WM financing programs ;)

[Peter Drouin]

If you're going to get a bigger mill don't fool around get a big one and get one with a remote station so you won't be in a dust cloud with the fire logs. ;)

[redprospector]

I don't have any experience sawing burnt trees that were only burnt a year or 2 ago. But I'm building my wife some kitchen cabinets out of some Southwestern White Pine that was burnt in the Scott Able fire in 2000. So it's been standing there waiting for me for 16 years now. 
The sapwood is all rotten or gone, but the heartwood is as solid as a rock...well, except for the cracks and splits I'm having to cull out. I'm just making a cant, and milling it straight through. Then I start culling. I'm probably culling 40 to 50% of it out. There's no way I'd mill this stuff for anyone but my wife, but if I did it would have to be just like I'm doing it, by the hour, and they could do the culling.
It's pretty stuff, but it breaks my heart to see that much of it (my labor) go out with the trash.

[OlJarhead]

Good to know.  I'm hopeful they will get plenty to rebuild their barn as it sounds like they have somewhere between 18000 and 30000bf of lumber in those trees if it isn't toast.  These burned last August/September so who knows?