With fires last summer burning tens of thousand of acres, the Chadron-based Nebraska National Forest is expanding and simplifying its firewood permit program.

Permits used to cost $20 for 4 cords of wood taken from 2 pre-set locations, but Pine Ridge Ranger District forester John Lee says permits are now free and people can go out and cut their own wood  up to 150 feet off all Forest Service Roads and county roads crossing National Forest land.

Firewood permits are available for both the Pine Ridge Ranger District and the Oglala National Grasslands. Lee hopes the public takes full advantage of the free permits…one per person…to both reduce their own heating bills and to help the Forest Service meet its forest management goals.

There is a limit of one permit a year per person, but each is good for up to 4 cords of a wood.  One cord of firewood is measured as four feet by four feet by eight feet, or approximately one-half cord for a half-ton pickup loaded.

Lee says that Ponderosa pines…the most common tree in the Nebraska National Forest…can be cut up for firewood whether they’re downed or still standing and dead. Only fallen hardwood trees such as cottonwoods can be taken; those dead and still standing can not be felled.

Travel Management regulations prohibit permit holders from driving off designated roads to cut and collect firewood, no firewood cutting of any type is allowed in established campgrounds, at the Pine Ridge Job Corps Center, or in the Soldier Creek Wilderness, and no tree can be taken less than 50-feet from a stream.

Even though the firewood permits are free, interested persons must come to the Pine Ridge Ranger District Office in Chadron to pick them up, and permits must be kept with the person while retrieving firewood.

The free firewood permits with maps and instructions attached are available at the Pine Ridge Ranger District Office at the NNF&G headquarters in Chadron during regular business hours, Monday through Friday between 8:00 A.M. and 5:00 P.M.