White birch, paper birch and gray birch firewood burns good but doesn’t last long. It has low to medium heat. White birch doesn’t dry well until it is split because the bark seals moisture in so well. And it will rot fairly quickly if it is not cut split and dried. It tends to rot (or pooches) from the inside out.
Yellow birch and especially black birch are higher in BTU and usually considered to be the best of the birches for firewood. Black birch is more comparable to oak in BTU and density.
Birch is usually easy to cut and split and is very abundant in the northeast parts of the US and western Canada. In many of the more northern areas birch is one of the few hardwoods and in some cases the only hardwood available.
If you have any experience with birch and especially experience with the differences between the different types, please post your comments below.
Paper birch is what we sell the rich folks from southern New England and New York that rent ski condos and such. It looks nice in the living room even though it’s heat value is marginal. Yellow birch is decent firewood and fairly abundant around here. Black birch is excellent but far less common. I live in west central NH.
has the shortest shelf life from moisture absorption – burn it first – this has nothing to do with heat value but birch has the most wonderful aroma when burned.
Birch bark is highly flammable and makes wonderful tinder. It will ignite from a match and is great under a stack of wood to get it started. Otherwise, the wood is generally useless as a fuel.
We sometimes go foraging for birch bark for tinder. Go into a stand of mature (white) birch (which somehow feels like a cathedral – or otherwise holy and awe-inspiring) and search for downed trees. Usually, the wood will have rotted out of the bark, leaving a long tube of bark. Pick them up and play with them (they are remarkably strong) and slip them on your arms, legs and make yourself into the Michelin man. Never desecrate a living tree by peeling off the bark, Puleese!