FORKS – An offer from the state Department of Natural Resources for residents to collect their own firewood left over from timber sales has garnered some unusual requests.
“We’ve been inundated with lots of phone calls,” said Charlie Cortelyou, regional manager for the department’s Olympic Region.
“It’s been quite an experience.”
After timber harvests on some state trust lands, the department allows residents to remove leftover wood from slash piles.
Three sites – two in Jefferson County and one in Clallam County – were made available to the public earlier this month.
The offers allow people to go to the sites and cut their own firewood from downed trees within 100 yards of the road that have not been marked by blue paint as off-limits.
However, when word got out, the department’s offices in Forks began receiving a high volume of calls, some of which expected the department to have firewood ready for people to pick up.
One caller asked to borrow a chain saw, and a woman whose husband has cancer asked department employees to drop off wood at her house, Cortelyou said.