Yes it is a lot like hay in the barn— but not quite. If you have a barn fire hay smolders unless it is loose. Gasifier wood that is chunked and dried, goes up like kindling. I had about 40 grain sacks full of wood ready to go driving and a trailer full that I didn’t have bags for. The insurance man saw my “chunker” and wanted to know what that was. I couldn’t find one chunk of wood laying where the sacks had been or the trailer was sitting. I got my truck out and it is sitting in the yard waiting for a trial run since the changes I had made and I don’t have a chunk of wood or a tractor/chunker to chunk any with.
TomC
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Sorry to hear for your loss TomC.
Yep. You discribe a woodmill fire well. Our Indiana DOW friends a year or so ago.
tree-farmer Steve unruh
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Found a man who might come in and clean up the mess. He sells a lot of scrap iron that he collects around the country side. The wood was a problem for him. There is no market for chard dimensioned lumber. He wanted to know what to do with it. I’m thinking I should set it aside until another winter and burn it for charcoal. I had a couple of barrels of charcoal that was dry and sized and went through the fire. I bet that is some excellent charcoal gasifier fuel now.TomC
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Was that building what we in Michigan cal a quonset building? Here they are mainly all steel. What wood was in yours that burned?
Good afternoon Wayne K ,That wood pile looks a lot better than a foot of snow we got 2 days ago, still melting down too about 4 " today.Happy Chunking, those chunkers are much more tollerable than a table saw sawing. At leaste all the hummid weather reduces fire risk.
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Yes Don, The building was a Quonset. The Quonset is still standing, I had to build the end walls out of framing and barn steel siding. Even with the back door still close, when I drove my wood truck out the front doors the wind went through like a tunnel. The Quonset metal was coated with “galvalume”. Do you how I can retreat that so that it doesn’t rust? The insurance estimator suggested give it a “sodium blast” then paint it with some paint that is used for steel buildings. TomC
PS Too bad you aren’t closer. I have got a couple of 55 gal barrels of dry and sized charcoal that just went through another firing.
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I wonder about painting it with the paint for metal roofs? I don’t know for sure what that stuff actually is but they spray it right over old rusty metal roofs and it seems to hold up really well.
Always sucks to hear about someone having to deal with a fire. Seems like regardless what it is that burns you loose something hard to replace.
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Hi Tom, sorry for your incident, Found this in the web. Maybe it´ll help.
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Thank you Abner. That stuff should have been sprayed on the building before the fire. I do appreciate your thinking of me. TomC
Nice to see the 4 ft of snow have disappeared…
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Even though the pay scale is low, having a full wood pile and chunks drying is very satisfying.
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We’ve had a super fast snow melting the last couple of weeks. Local news is full of flooded rivers, roads, basements and so on. Still patches of snow on my yard and loads of it in the woods, but I think we are catching up on the spring delay.
Agree, but I don’t know about the pay scale. Not only is it satisfying. The wood gives you free exercise, free amusement, free heating, free transportation and freedom. Most people pay for them all 
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The last of my snow went a few days ago when it hit 60 F. Was probably no more the 40 F for the high before that. This is a weird spring been cold here. I think I missed the spring flood but we had a nasty fall and winter flood both leaving a big mess in my fields. I was sort of hoping I would get one this spring too maybe it could wash out the mess that the last two dropped… but now cleaning the fields is near the top of my project list. Glad spring is here just wish I had a shorter project list…
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Ha! I got a jump on my getting in wood this year. Four days of no-raining last week and I was able to un-tarp one of the piles of tops/butt-cutoffs and get in 1/2 a pickup truck load of new fairly dry tops-wood. Stuff always been 4-6 feet up off the ground.
Really needed it. Seems I burn through my in-woodshed saved back light woods for this May/June’s mornings chill breaking fires back in a warmish late Dec/early January.
Ha! Where did it all go? (last summers harvest) Why did it not last me trough until July?
Put-in ~30% of it last Fall as bottom of piles ground contact wood. Years of rain and weathers still too wet then. Burnt it alright in the coldest months this year of Nov, Feb and March. Gave enough heat with enough air and turbulence’s.
Poor fuel use economy.
THIS year these butt-cut on ground large rounds will have to be sectioned up and stacked at least up off ground for 4-6 weeks to air/sun dried down better.
Sigh. I hate heavy fire wood working out in full summer heat. I too damn old now.
Needs musts . . .
tree-farmer Steve unruh
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Steve it seems like I can never get enough wood cut… I long for the good old days when there where 4 of us here working it up during the summer… oh well such is life times change. Glad to hear you got a start on it now. I have a pickup load I sawed to stove leinght a while ago and haven’t made it back to split. Been working on getting the fields cleaned up this last week instead. Your comment about efficient wood usage reminds me I have to fix the old soap stone stove this summer I don’t want to limp it though another winter with a broken cat that wasted alot of wood. I figure I will find alot of my lost heat when I clean the chimney.
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I sawed timber today and it whipped me. 5 X 12 - 16 feet long , full of juice / heavy and almost more than I can manhandle.
It is still day light but I’am going to bed 
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That is another problem with getting older
Your 6’ 3” son who was always around to help has moved on.
That is some impressive timbers
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Next winter’s firewood is split, stacked and drying. Chunks are baged and storages filled up. However a few trees were knocked down by the wind and I just can’t leave them on the ground to rot. Chainsaw and hatchet on the bed and a Saturday amusement DOW trip. There’s nothing like idling through the woods, window down and listening to the smoth woodgas exhaust.
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