I am sure that Gregg Martin would have some useful thoughts about hog fuel. Chipping whole logs for paper mills came about strongly in the 1950s. Prior to that time, hog fuel was mostly from sawmill leftovers which could be be diverted from the slash burners (The teepee Hut fire places) leaving mostly saw dust for on site burning, as it seems buyers for waste wood fuel use did not place a high value for saw dust.

Chipping became a big thing for the burgening North West paper mills with their huge demand for wood fiber which the mills found profits from chipping logs into fairly consistent sized chips. The demand for chips reached the point where whole logs were now chipped, no longer was mill waste with the problems of irregular size as valued.

Tim's photos show the type of non-chip loads on early hog fuel cars. Lots of slash which would have  otherwise been sent into the teepee burners. Chip cars and hog fuel cars were serving different markets.

-Andy Carlson

Ojai CA