Firewood

Firewood BTU chart: heat per cord by species

How much heat a cord of firewood gives you depends on the species — a cord of osage-orange carries roughly twice the heat of a cord of basswood. The chart below is the university extension numbers in one sortable table: heat per seasoned cord, plus how each wood smokes, sparks, coals, and splits.

The chart

Figures are million BTU per full cord, seasoned, as the extension services publish them — honest ranges, not lab precision. Where the tables disagree, you see the spread. Click a column heading to sort.

Heat per seasoned cord and burn ratings by firewood species, hottest first

Osage-orange (hedge)	30.7 – 32.9	A year or more	Low	Many	Excellent	Easy	Excellent
Shagbark hickory	27.5 – 29.1	A year or more	Low	Few	Excellent	Difficult	Excellent
White oak	27.0 – 29.1	A year or more	Low	Few	Excellent	Medium	Excellent
Black locust	27.9 – 28.1	A year or more	Low	Few	Excellent	Difficult	Excellent
Ironwood (hophornbeam)	27.9	A year or more	Medium	Few	Excellent	Difficult	Excellent
Beech	27.5	A year or more	—	Few	Excellent	Difficult	—
Apple	27.0	A year or more	Low	Few	Good	Medium	Excellent
Bitternut hickory	26.7	A year or more	Low	Few	Excellent	Medium	Excellent
Honeylocust	26.7	A year or more	Low	Few	Excellent	Easy	Excellent
Bur oak	26.2	A year or more	Low	Few	Excellent	Easy	Excellent
Mulberry	25.8	A year or more	Medium	Many	Excellent	Easy	Excellent
Sugar maple (hard maple)	25.0 – 25.5	A year or more	Low	Few	Excellent	Easy	Excellent
Red oak	24.6 – 25.3	A year or more	Low	Few	Excellent	Medium	Excellent
White ash	23.6 – 24.2	A year or more	Low	Few	Good	Medium	Excellent
Black walnut	21.8 – 22.2	6–12 months	Low	Few	Good	Easy	Excellent
Rocky Mountain juniper	21.8	6–12 months	Medium	Many	Poor	Medium	Fair
Kentucky coffeetree	21.6	6–12 months	Low	Few	Good	Medium	Good
Red elm (slippery elm)	21.4 – 21.6	6–12 months	Medium	Few	Excellent	Easy	Good
Hackberry	21.2 – 21.6	6–12 months	Low	Few	Good	Easy	Good
Lodgepole pine	21.1	6–12 months	—	Many	Fair	Easy	Fair
Siberian elm	20.9	6–12 months	Medium	Few	Good	Difficult	Fair
Paper birch	20.8	6–12 months	Medium	Few	Good	Medium	Fair
Silver maple	19.0 – 20.8	6–12 months	Low	Few	Excellent	Medium	Fair
Douglas-fir	20.7	6–12 months	High	Few	Fair	Easy	Good
Sycamore	19.5 – 20.7	6–12 months	Medium	Few	Good	Difficult	Good
Black cherry	20.4	6–12 months	Low	Few	Excellent	Easy	Good
American elm	20.0 – 20.1	6–12 months	Medium	Few	Excellent	Difficult	Fair
Green ash	20.0	6–12 months	Low	Few	Good	Easy	Excellent
Shortleaf pine	19.0	6–12 months	—	—	—	—	—
Eastern redcedar	13.0 – 18.9	6–12 months	Medium	Many	Poor	Medium	Fair
Boxelder	17.5 – 18.3	6–12 months	Medium	Few	Poor	Difficult	Fair
Willow	17.6	6–12 months	Low	Few	Poor	Easy	Poor
Jack pine	17.2	6–12 months	Low	Many	Poor	Difficult	Fair
Catalpa	16.4	6–12 months	Medium	Few	Good	Difficult	Fair
Ponderosa pine	16.2	6–12 months	Medium	Many	Fair	Easy	Fair
Cottonwood	15.8 – 16.1	6–12 months	Medium	Few	Good	Easy	Fair
Eastern white pine	15.6 – 15.9	6–12 months	Medium	Few	Poor	Medium	Fair
Spruce	15.5	6–12 months	Medium	Many	Poor	Easy	Fair
Basswood (linden)	13.8 – 14.7	6–12 months	Medium	Few	Poor	Easy	Fair
White fir	14.6	6–12 months	Medium	Few	Poor	Easy	Fair
Buckeye	13.8	6–12 months	Low	Few	Poor	Medium	Fair

Heat figures and ratings come from three published extension tables: Utah State University Extension Forestry's wood heating table, the University of Nebraska–Lincoln's NebGuide G1554, and the University of Maryland Extension's Fact Sheet 926. A dash means the tables don't rate that species. Seasoning times are the extension guidance for the wood's density class, not per-tree measurements.

What a cord actually is

A full cord is a stack 4 feet tall, 8 feet long, and 4 feet deep — 128 cubic feet of stacked wood, which works out to roughly 80 cubic feet of solid wood once you subtract the air between the pieces. Every figure in the chart above is per full cord.

Most of what's sold by the pickup load or as a "face cord" or "rick" is less than that: a face cord is the same 4-by-8 face but only one stick deep — usually 12 to 18 inches — so it's a third to a half of a full cord. A full cord of green wood can weigh more than two tons, which is why nobody delivers one in a sedan. When you're comparing prices, get the stack dimensions, not the name.

Seasoning matters more than species

The chart rewards picking a dense wood, but the bigger win is drier wood. Freshly cut wood is heavy with water, and every pound of that water boils away in your stove before the wood gives you any warmth. Missouri Extension's figures put green wood at about 4,900 BTU per pound against 7,100 for the same wood air-dried — roughly a third of the heat never reaches the room. A seasoned cord of a modest species beats a green cord of a great one.

Seasoning is not complicated, just slow: split it, stack it off the ground where sun and wind can reach it, and wait. Extension guidance says six months to a year for most wood, and at least a full year for the dense hardwoods — oak especially is famous for holding its water. The wood is ready when it's under about 20 percent moisture: gray, checked on the ends, light for its size, and it clacks rather than thuds. A moisture meter costs less than a decent hatchet and removes the guesswork.

Green vs seasoned: where the heat goes

Burning green wood doesn't just waste heat — the steam and unburned smoke condense in your chimney as creosote, the tar that causes chimney fires. Maryland Extension's table puts about 1,379 pounds of water in a green cord of red oak: that's most of a ton of water you'd be boiling off into your flue. Green wood also smolders, smokes out the neighborhood, and is miserable to light. Whatever species you burn, burn it dry.

Picking from the chart

The hottest wood isn't automatically the right wood — a fireplace fire cares more about sparks than BTUs, and the never-burn list matters more than either. Our best-firewood guide walks the same table by what you're actually burning for. And if you're buying a cord, buy it near where you'll burn it — hauling firewood long distances spreads tree-killing pests.

A chart tells you how wood burns, not whether you can burn tonight. Burn bans are declared county by county — check your county's current status and confirm with the county line before you light.