CampFires and the Wood You Use

I have been camping and fishing since I was a little girl. For me besides going fishing while I am out camping, the best thing is a campfire. I have made and had more campfires than I could count. This past May while out camping I wanted to have a campfire that night but was to hot and tired to go out in the woods to search for wood. So we bought a bundle from the guy who ran the local bait shop. He had this big shed full of wood, 3 different kinds. He had maple, oak and sassafrass. Wow I have never burned oak or sassafrass before so I thought it would be interesting to see how each wood burned.  I have burnt maple and pine before but never the other 2. As I was helping my husband move the wood from our van to the campfire, I noticed how heavy oak was for such a small piece I was holding. The maple was quite a bit lighter in weight than the oak and the sassafrass was so light I was reminded of balsa wood which has hardly any weight. And the burning was different as well, the denser the wood the slower it burned. We put a fair size piece of oak in a well established fire and after 2 hours the one side of the oak was still the same color it was when we put it in the fire. No charing at all on this side of the wood. By morning the entire fire had burnt out except that piece of oak. Amazing, there was still at least a fourth of that wood that had not burnt at all. So if you want lots of flames in your campfire pick a light weight wood, and if you are going for prolonged warmth my suggestion is to burn oak. I took some pics of the wood, the sassafrass is a wood I have never even seen before.

The first piece of wood is oak, 2nd is maple, 3rd is the sassafrass.