Georgia Forestry Commission Forest Health experts say moving firewood has been linked to the spread of destructive, non-native insects and diseases to forest ecosystems. While these pests can’t move far on their own, they can travel hundreds of miles when people move firewood, logs, chips, and mulch. Forest pests can kill our native trees and be very expensive, if not impossible, to control.

Over 1.5 billion metric tons of carbon is sequestered on Georgia timberland according to 2019 Forest Inventory & Analysis (FIA) data, provided by the U.S. Forest Service. This includes 23.2 million acres on federal, state/local, and private property. It accounts for carbon in aboveground and belowground live and dead biomass, aboveground and belowground understory vegetation, coarse woody debris, soil, and leaf litter. This estimate excludes timberland primarily consisting of exotic species and non-stocked stands (previously forested land that has yet to be replanted or produce substantial natural vegetation).

This resource bulletin describes the principal findings of a harvest and utilization study conducted during the ninth inventory of Georgia’s forest resources. Survey crews sampled and measured trees harvested in a variety of logging operations, and analysts calculated wood volume and percent of wood utilization. Harvest volume data and factors for growing-stock and nongrowing-stock logging residue are described and interpreted.