The personal-use firewood program on three national forests: a cost analysis

Abstract

The national forests provide a substantial volume of firewood for America's households. The 17 national forest districts studied spent over $148,000 to provide over 25,000 personal-use firewood permits during the calendar year 1981; 86 percent of the permits were for freewood mostly in the form of dead or down wood. The remaining 14 percent were for greenwood sold either to households in the form of pickup load sales or through the sale of personal-size boundaries of marked timber. It cost the 17 districts almost $6.00 per permit to provide this service. The cost per permit varied by the district issuing the permit and by the system used to provide the wood. The cost by district ranged from less than $0.50 to $32.00 per permit; by system the cost ranged from approximately $2.80 for a dead or down permit to over $56.00 a permit to prepare a personal-size sale.

Citation

Timson, Floyd G. 1983. The personal-use firewood program on three national forests: a cost analysis. Res. Pap. NE-527. Broomall, PA: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Northeastern Forest Experiement Station. 8p.