Conservation Land Bank offers free surplus firewood by lottery

Submitted by The San Juan County Conservation Land Bank

The San Juan County Conservation Land Bank is offering a limited amount of Douglas fir firewood to San Juan County residents. The Land Bank has been working on an eco-cultural restoration project at Mount Grant Preserve on San Juan Island for several years involving selectively thinning the forest, burning slash to produce biochar and planting culturally important native plants onsite. This project has created a surplus of Douglas fir logs that are easily accessible from the roadway.

Approximately eight half-cords of dead and downed wood are available for general use. The wood will be given away by lottery. Each lottery winner will be allowed one truckload per household and must be available to pick up the wood on Feb. 8 or 9.

This wood is intended to be used by San Juan County residents for home heating and not for resale. All logs are cut at about 4 feet in length with diameters between 4-10 inches. The logs were felled and stacked in December 2023. The wood must be retrieved and removed from the site before it can be bucked into smaller pieces. No chain saw work may occur at the site. Users selected to receive this wood will need to load by hand into their truck; wood is given away as is. Vehicles must have four-wheel drive to access the site.

To sign up for the firewood lottery (one entry per household per physical address) please email the following information to tanjaw@sjclandbank.org beginning Monday, Jan. 20, through Friday, Jan. 31:

In the subject line of your email include the words “Mount Grant Firewood Lottery.” In the body of your email include: Your first and last name; physical address; mailing address; and phone number. Wait for the Land Bank to contact you with further instructions.

A random lottery will be conducted on Monday, Feb. 3, from the email entries received by Friday, Jan. 31, at 4 p.m. The first eight to 10 names (equal to the number of truckloads available) will be drawn randomly and notified by email no later than Tuesday, Feb. 4, that they have been selected. Winners who don’t respond by Friday, Feb. 7, will be removed, and the next user on the list will be notified. Only those participants who are selected will be contacted. Participants who did not win will not be notified. Winners must arrange to collect their wood on Saturday, Feb. 8, and Sunday, Feb. 9. Written authorization along with exact location and directions will be provided to the lottery winners upon selection. If you do not have email, please call Williamson at 360-370-7655 by the deadline.

San Juan County’s Land Bank, funded by a 1% real estate excise tax paid by purchasers of property at closing, acquires and preserves areas in the county that have environmental, agricultural, aesthetic, cultural, scientific, historic, scenic or low-intensity recreational value. Their offices are located at 328 Caines Street, Friday Harbor, WA 98250. For more information about San Juan County’s Land Bank, visit www.sjclandbank.org.