Last week, the Flagstaff Fire Department held a two-day firewood giveaway for area residents. The free firewood was seasoned pine cut last year by the Dept’s Wildland Fire Crew on two sites on the City-owned Observatory Mesa Open Space parcel.
Forest thinning on Observatory Mesa is part of the on-going voter-approved Flagstaff Watershed Protection Project, designed to reduce the threat of damaging wildfire and flooding into the community.
This year’s event drew a record crowd. In all, a total of 627 people, in over 350 vehicles, removed over 300 cords of wood from the two sites. It’s estimated that over 70% of the wood was headed to the Hopi and Navajo Reservations.
“We’re extremely pleased to provide this free wood” said Paul Summerfelt, the City’s Manager for the Watershed Project. Since the Project began in 2013, over 3,200 cords of firewood have been distributed in the fall giveaways.