"Buy It Where You Burn It" campaign heats up

Firewood movement is linked to the spread of tree-killing insects and fungus.

“Buy it where you burn it” has a nice ring to it, but it’s more than a catchy phrase.  It’s an urgent plea to stop the movement of firewood from its place of origin.  

As Memorial Day weekend approaches, thousands of Californians will head to parks, forests and wilderness areas, and many of them will be bringing their firewood with them.  Although it seems as innocent as bringing along a picnic basket, the movement of firewood has been linked to the rapid spread of creatures such as the Gold Spotted Oak Borer (GSOB) and the Polyphagous Shot Hole Borer (PSHB - “polyphagous” translating rather literally to “an appetite for everything”).  GSOB has a preferential host - oak trees.  PSHB likes everything from avocado trees to sycamores, willows and alders…and oak trees, too.

The relationship of these and other insects to their host trees is a complex one that includes a partnership with fungi, which also infests the tree.  Both insects and fungi are part of the natural birth/death/rebirth cycle of life that all living things are a part of, facilitating the decomposition of living matter into nutrients that ultimately feed the next generation.  No habitat is stagnant; there are always fluctuations in the health of plants, the population of insects and larger animals, the presence of water, the ability of the soil to nurture life.  

What is new to this dynamic is our effect on these habitats when we introduce - by accident or on purpose - flora and fauna that are foreign to them.  When GSOB and PSHB are introduced into areas where they did not previously exist, the trees they infest have no natural defense against them.  The “natural defenses” that plants evolve are created over a course of multiple generations of coping with a pathogen or phenomenon.  Faced with the sudden arrival of an unfamiliar assailant, many trees fall prey to the new attacker.

Small enough to perch on the tip of a pencil lead, these insects do spread without the help of humans, but they do so much more slowly, moving from tree to tree and grove to grove. Once we mobilize them in firewood, their opportunities for introduction into new habitats are virtually limitless.  We will unwittingly carry them into whatever landscapes we cherish the most.

While the science of managing GSOB and PSHB infestations is complicated, the message that needs to reach the public is clear and simple.  Don’t move firewood.  Purchase wood for campfires and fireplace use in the location where you’ll be using it.  

For more information, http://www.dontmovefirewood.org or http://firewood.ca.gov