How to Find Firewood in the Mountains

Video Transcript

"Hi this is David Jackel on behalf of Expert Village, and I am here to talk to you about gathering firewood in the Appalachian Mountains. Now when you are looking for firewood, most importantly look for dry wood, because wet wood is not going to do you much good. You need wood that is going to burn easily. It is hard enough to get a fire started, and you do not want to have to worry about the flames going out and having to start all over again. The best place to look for firewood, obviously, is near where there are trees, so go into a place where there are dense amounts of trees, and there you can find firewood on the ground. The first thing you should look for are small twigs, because these are what you are going to use to build the fire. Assemble a bunch of small twigs, bring them all to one area that you will use to store all of your firewood, it is good to keep all of that stuff in one place. Then go looking for larger pieces of wood, medium-sized branches. If you find a tree that has fallen down, you will find lots of different options of wood all over the place, so search for those. Often times in dense forests, trees get knocked down all the time, so you can grab some of those. Be careful when you are looking through the ground because you never know when you will come across a snake or a spider or something like that. Just keep your eyes open and be aware of what you are doing. Keep all firewood in one place, and keep it away from where you are going to make the fire. And make sure to store the firewood in a place that is not going to be susceptible to rain. If you are out in the open where there is no covering, then put some kind of plastic or something else on top of the wood, because once it gets wet it takes awhile for it to get dry, and you need it to be dry in order to start a fire."