Unbelievably I just discovered this natural resource called fatwood. I am curious to know if this resource is found in the BWCA and if it is can a person harvest it legally. Thank you.

Never heard of it nor do I know what it is. Care to elaborate?

OneMatch: "Never heard of it nor do I know what it is. Care to elaborate?"

It’s the stump and tap root portion of a highly resinous tree, so this includes several pine tree types (i.e. jack pine). This part of the tree has lots of terpenes and other related hydrocarbons, so think fuel that burns well like oil.

And to the original question I guess unless you find this portion of the fallen dead tree freely laying on the ground you likely can’t harvest it. Digging up stumps probably isn’t allowed in the BWCA...and certainly it’s not aligned with the leave no trace philosophy and policy.

My two cents.

Years ago I recall seeing such a thing advertised, probably in an Orvis catalog, as Georgia Fatwood. It was purported to be Southern Yellow Pine and was said to be loaded with pitch which made it good kindling. Technically there is no pine that is formally classified as a Southern Yellow Pine, but Sibley (Guide to Trees) lists several species that are sometimes referred to as Yellow Pine. One that is often referred to as such in the Shortleaf Pine, Pinus echinata. It would not be found in the BW. As I recall, there is a person who subscribes to this web site who goes by the screen name as "thebotanyguy". Perhaps he will weigh in here and elaborate.

Is this the same as a Pine knot?

moray: "Is this the same as a Pine knot?"

I think it is similar. The Sigurd Olson essay/chapter titled "Pine Knots" is a personal favorite, and I have enjoyed scouting for these.

OneMatch: "Never heard of it nor do I know what it is. Care to elaborate?"

Fatwood is found at the base of pine trees. When the die all the sap goes to the bottom of the tree and that is where fatwood can be found. Fatwood is full of resins, pine tar, and smells like turpentine, yellow in color. It is highly flammable and if you cut some small shavings with your knife you can light it with one strike of a Ferrocerium rod. You just need a very small amount to start many fires. To harvest it you just find any dead stump and see if it has any yellow wood or smells like turpentine. It needs to be a pine tree, not a oak, or birch tree. I see it every so often but usually don’t dig it up. Where this wood is valued is if you want to start a fire with a flint and steel or Ferrocerium rod. You get out your fatwood and shave off some, a few sparks and you have fire.

The rules in the BWCA say you can only burn dead and down wood. So a old stump is dead and most times the tree is down. I would remove some if I saw it but there are so many other things in the woods to start fires easier to find.

Most times I just find a bunch of pine sap blisters and remove off any of the trees on some birch bark, make a couple of feather sticks and one strike with a Ferrocerium rod and I have fire. Any Jackpine, Norway, Red or White Pines has loads of sap oozing out that is way faster than hunting for fatwood stumps.

Fat wood a LLBean

We have some of this in the car for camping. 3 or 4 small pieces is all it takes.

I ran across it all the time in my firefighting career in the southeast. I still have around 20 pieces of it in my garage now to be used in emergency cases for starting fires. Some of the pine species in the BW have similar attributes but none have the resinous qualities of the pine in the southeast like the Long Leaf Pine. The locals in the southeast called it "fat lighter wood" you can literally take a 1/2 - 1 inch round of it and start it on fire with one match.

Funny story, I was car camping in a campground in Montana one time, and my campsite neighbor and I became friends. He goes back to his campsite and comes back with a chunk or two of wood and states "I bet you don't know what this is" I took a quick look at it and replied Fat Lighter wood. That southerner was quite surprised that this northern Minnesotan knew what he had on his hands. He left me with a parting gift of 20-30 pieces, these are the same chunks that I have in my garage now.

Fat lighter wood

I keep a small piece of fatwood with my flint and steel fire starting kit that I trip with.

Two years ago on a chilly gray October trip I was on one of the sites on LLC's Boulder Bay. While gathering firewood I discovered a cache of fatwood in the stump and roots of a large old pine tree that had fallen years earlier. After I processed it into typical small firewood size pieces I was transfixed watching the fire because each piece I put on would burn for at least a half hour before it finally turned to ash. That was a nice hot fire on a cold windy day, although the the smoke was black.

Definitely a southern product. Most often heartwood from lower trunk, stump and roots of longleaf pine( used to be the source of resin for naval stores-turpentine and various tars actually tapping trees) and to a lesser extent shortleaf pine. Trees need to be pretty old to get the resinous heartwood.

You don't need any fine kindling or paper, just hold a match to a stick and it bursts into flame and gets hot quickly.

If there is a tree that might produce resinous heartwood it would red pine, but I have never seen anything like fat lighter north of the Ohio River.

Shortleaf pine when allowed to get old and slow-growing is wonderful wood. I use dense grain structural grade SYP for gunnels on my canoes. It is hard, strong and durable.

Thank you all for your responses. Very informative. I have had many trips to the BWCA and have never cut a live tree or branch and have no intentions of doing so. I do prescribe to the LNT philosophy as much as possible. I know there are a lot of blow down trees and trees that are dead in the BWCA and it is from these types of trees I would look for the fatwood. I found a couple of pine stumps in the woods behind my house and was able to harvest about a pound of resin filled pieces of wood which I cut into small pieces. It's incredible how easily it lights and how long it burns. In years past some type of fire starter has always been included in our essentials ; the fatwood is just another option.

Not to get too far off the subject but I've carried fire starters made
from Cotton Balls and common vaseline. Carried in a small zip lock
baggie in my ditty bag. Vaseline is a petroleum product. Just rub some
in cotton balls and keep until needed. A few sparks or a bic lighter and
you have flame enough to get kindling going enough to start your
fire.
Larry S

Typically, I have found parts of old fire killed dead pine trees that are fully saturated with pitch. The pitch acts as a perservative so these stumps can be very old. My dad originally showed me that trick--in our deer hunting area there were those old pine stumps, and if you build a fire at the base of a big one, they can burn a long long time--overnight even. Obviously something you don't want to do in the BWCA or other public land!

The pitch saturated wood burns nice and bright for a long time, though it produces a lot of soot so you don't want to use it for cooking. I limit my harvest to what I can break with my hands. Sometimes you can find a chunk of a stump sticking out of the ground. Looks like a thing that couldn't possibly burn, but throw it on the fire and it will burn for hours.

Sometimes, you can find pine knots ala Sig Olsen. They burn nice too though they need to be dry. Pitch soaked wood is a good resource, there being a lack of hardwood up there. As far as harvesting it to take out, not sure that is legal or not. Once on a long wet trip, I split up some into pencil sized splinters, and carried it around in a ziplock bag. Worked great for starting fires.

Nowadays I'm like Larry and carry cotton balls.

If your feeling lazy, you should be able to buy a bag of it at the hardware store. It doesnt cost much, cut to nice uniform sizes.

Here are a couple pics I took of pine fatwood stumps in northern MN. Edit I think these are White Pine stumps, Red Pine seem to be more solid if I recall what a forester who studies these for the WI DNR told me.

Found the correspondence with my buddy who does fire dendrochronology for WI DNR. I sent him the pictures and this is part of his reply.

"In very general terms, WP stumps are in poorer condition because WP produces less resin/pitch which hardens with fire and helps preserve the stump."

Very interesting LindenTree. Thank you for the info on the white pine. The pictures are also appreciated. I found a a stump today like the one pictured on the left. Altogether I got about 3 lbs of Fatwood, certainly enough to last a couple of seasons.

Gqualls, here is some more of the correspondence from the contractor who does fire dendrochronology in WI. I fought alot of wildfires with Jay.

Jay the fire dendrocronologist

You got it! I am guessing that many of those are White Pine. It looks like the more solid, smaller diameter one is most likely Red Pine. The real challenge is finding the ones with enough meat on their bones to get some good data. I can go on several consecutive stump hunts and get nothing, but persistence pays off just like fishing or hunting. And just like fishing or hunting, getting nothing can still be a good day in the woods!

Me
I figured they were not much for data collection. If they have more fire occurrence is it easier to find ones with meat? How do you tell if they are WP or RP from the pics. He has some nice WP around his property, guessing 100+ yo. Most were RP that are 75-100 yo I'm guessing.

Jay sent October 6, 2020
In very general terms, WP stumps are in poorer condition because WP produces less resin/pitch which hardens with fire and helps preserve the stump. Good call on age, 1920 was a big fire year in the Lake states. Many of our natural origin RP and WP stands have 1920 as the year of origin.

I guess they didn't give the scientific name "Pinus resinosa" to red pine for nothing. I guessed that those pitchy stumps were red pine, though never verified it. I've noticed that white pine doesn't really make very good canoe country firewood in general. I've found dead branches, and thought I've scored something good, but they often tend to be sort of rotten and burn pretty quickly.

Dead white pine branches tend to lose their bark and become very good dry fuel. Where the branches enter the trunk is a great store of resinous pine knots that are basically the same as fat wood. Red pine bark tends to remain on the branches and they rot quickly. Red pine is decent wood for burning but generally needs to be cut and split to dry.

Have used it for years for starting fires in my stove at home. We often don’t keep it burning overnight and it makes for quick easy starts. I buy the large box from LL Bean. I’ve found it lights even quicker after I’ve let it sit open for a long while and it dries out even more. Just a couple sticks and you’re good to go.

You can buy fatwood from amazon now a days

The aborted lower branches of Red and Jack pine will go "fat" usually extending 4-5" from the branch collar. I think this is a mechanism to seal the aborted branches from disease and water loss. Obviously only remove from dead trees on public land but it can be a great source of firestarter. You will know you found the good stuff from a strong smell of pitch. It burns like it's soaked in kerosene. I usually cut a 4" section and then baton into splinters with my knife. Will burn well when wet.

OneMatch: "Never heard of it nor do I know what it is. Care to elaborate?"

Funny... from a guy named OneMatch!

I accidentally found some fatwood in Quetico. Cut into a downed small pine tree and could smell the oils and resins right way. Burned well, but a bit sooty.

I was reluctant to add to this thread, since we have access to our own very large supply of local “fat wood”. But, since the secret is out I figured I’d share our story.

The area where we deer hunt is in North Central Minnesota and has hundreds of these old stumps. I’ve found them within a 15 mile radius, and suspect they cover a much larger territory.

I’ve surmised that most of them are remainders from a fire or fires around 1920. The common denominator is that every one is charred.

They range from smallish sticks that you can pull out very easily to virtually full stumps that couldn’t be removed after an hour of digging with a garden shovel and axe.

I’ve even seen snags a dozen feet high that probably weighed 100+ pounds. All of these various pieces are extremely dense-so dense that hand sawing them is a major chore.

During the hunting season, we usually get one hunk to split for fire starter and 1 or 2 more for a campfire. They are spectacular for a campfire because they burn for over an hour. With regular logs on their sides, the flames jump and even shoot out like a gas stove. Because they are virtually all sap, they don’t ash up, they appear to evaporate.

Early on we called them “cedar stumps”. But all of these are Red Pine, easily identifiable by the smell and prominent grain when cut. We have not found any White Pine like that. The locations with numerous stumps are higher and dryer than average. Many on side hills and flats. There are more stumps than we could use in 50 years.

Since we get most of them out by rocking them back and forth, the spot left behind is only noticeable if you step there. One reason I feel comfortable using this resource is because we lose them when the area is logged. At times, I have luckily stumbled over some in harvested plots, but locating them is 10 times as difficult.

Fritty

When my dad was a 8-year old in 1943 he lived with his aunt and uncle in a Tomahawk Timber company camps on the Kelly Loop. One camp they called "Indian Camp" was near Shamrock lake. Around 2000 when we were bird hunting he showed me a side-hill on the east side of the road that had numbers of old burned white pine stubs some 20 or more feet tall - there were quite a few still remaining then. He said in the winter of 1943-44 the loggers would cut the biggest charred stumps to use as firewood in their shacks. He said the wood under the charred outer surface was rock solid with clean, straight grain, and when cut into firewood length would split with just a tap of the axe and make a clear ringing-like sound, The split wood smelled heavily of pitch and you could start it with a match - sounds like fatwood to me.
He told me he believed the trees were burned in the late 1800's.
I looked into the fire history of the area and found this reference:
large fire near Isabella
"One of the huge 1863-64 fires, namely the North Kawishiwi River/Alice Lake/Cypress Lake/Saganaga Lake Complex, ravaged this area. This fire likely started near the town of Isabella."

Over the years when I camped in the vicinity I'd swing by and cut one of the remaining stubs and ceremonially burn it in the camp fire while sipping a scotch. That particular sidehill was clear-cut in '43 using horses and again in the last couple of years with heavy machinery, which pretty much obliterated my private fatwood stash :( I always wondered what local fire conditions left that little pocket of burned pine stubs to stand for a century or more.