Forest fuel reduction through energy wood production using a small chipper/CTL harvesting system

ABSTRACT- In the summer of 2000, fire destroyed millions of acres of forest across the United States. This s tudy investigates the feasibil i ty of harvesting to reduce forest fuel buildup and produce energy wood. Cut-to-length (CTL) harvesting coupled with a small in-woods chipper provides a low impact way to harvest pre-commercial trees and tops along with merchantable logs. While CTL harvesting systems have been used successmlly with full sized chippers, it requires two or three CTL teams. A smaller, less expensive, chipper which is expected to have similar productivity to a single harvester-forwarder team and have reasonable ownership and operating costs, will allow operations to stay small and efficient. A CTL/small chipper system is projected to be an efficient way of reducing forest fuel loads and less expensive than fire suppression and stand-replacement costs after wildfire. Energy wood from fuel reduction harvesting could be used as an alternative energy source. The benefits of energy wood become more important as fuel prices increase. The feasibility study suggests that if energy equivalent values were obtained, a CTL/small chipper system could provide income rather than expense for si te conversion, cleanup operations. [NTRODUCTION Most forest industry professionals agree that smaller trees will be the wood and fiber source of the future. With increased intensive forest management practices, trees ar