Acadia National Park is offering a pretty good deal for firewood, with a few catches.
Starting Saturday, the park will sell as much as two cords of wood for a token permit fee of $25 to anybody who lives within 50 miles of Otter Creek, spokeswoman Christie Anastasia said.
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Purchasers will do the park a favor by collecting the wood from a pile near the creek. The limbs are 16 to 20 inches in diameter. Park workers accumulated the wood through Acadia’s efforts to keep trees from crowding historic vistas.
“It is in big fat rounds, so it’s kind of bulky, but it’s not whole trees,” Anastasia said Tuesday. “It is kind of just something we are starting to pile up.”
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The park sold about 10 cords of wood when it began the wood-sales program last April, Superintendent Kevin Schneider said.
“Most of the wood that was taken down to maintain historic scenic vistas in the park was distributed into the local community,” he said in a statement.
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Here are the catches. The firewood is mostly green, so it will probably have to be aged a year, and some of it is softwood, which is less dense than the hotter and longer-burning hardwood.
Potential customers must call 207-288-8791 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Oct. 20-26, to reserve a permit to collect wood. If more than 15 call — only one person per residence is allowed — a random drawing will determine who qualifies.
Those who don’t make the cut will be put on a waiting list.
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“We never had to go into that waitlist last time,” Anastasia said. “In fact, we let one person come twice.”
Pick-ups must be scheduled between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. Oct. 30 to Nov. 2, one permit holder at a time, and the actual permit holder must be present.
Trailers can be used, but no chain sawing or wood splitting is allowed in the park. A park ranger will verify that no more than two cords of wood has been collected.
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Only wood available in the designated Otter Creek area can be collected. Any other collections are punishable by fine.
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