Firewood near Enumclaw, the free permit and the cord law

Near Enumclaw the place to cut your own firewood is the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest up Highway 410, and as of October 2026 the personal-use permit is free: up to six cords a calendar year, issued online or at the Forest Service office at 450 Roosevelt Ave. E. in Enumclaw, for dead and downed wood within 50 feet of a Forest Service road. The Department of Natural Resources region based in Enumclaw lists no firewood permits at all. And if you buy instead of cut, Washington law allows firewood to be sold only by the cord or a fraction of one, 128 cubic feet to the cord, with a written receipt.

The free part is recent. In May 2020 the forest's permit page, preserved by the Internet Archive, read: "Permits cost $20 for two cords of wood, up to a limit of six cords, per household, per year," and the Enumclaw counter sold them five days a week. In September 2021 the Forest Service's Pacific Northwest Region announced, in a release carried by the Bend station KTVZ, that this forest and six others would stop charging for personal-use firewood on October 1 of that year. The six-cord ceiling stayed. The counter hours did not.

Do you need a permit to cut firewood near Enumclaw?

You do, on national forest land, and it costs nothing. The forest's firewood page requires a permit before any firewood is cut or hauled off National Forest System land, and it issues the free personal-use permit through the Forest Service's online permit site or over the counter at its six offices, Enumclaw and North Bend among them. Government identification is required, and all the free permits you obtain in a calendar year may not exceed six cords combined; the forest's permit table lists six cords per household per year with a one-month window. A permit does not guarantee that wood will be there.

The Enumclaw office is open, as of October 2026, Wednesdays and Fridays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., closed from noon to 1 and on federal holidays, at (360) 825-6585, and its page refers permit questions to North Bend, open Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9 to 3 at (425) 888-1421. Call before driving to either, to confirm the hours and that permits are in stock. The same offices figure in the Christmas tree permit guide and the mushroom permit guide.

What are the rules for cutting firewood in the national forest?

Dead and downed wood only, within 50 feet of the edge of a Forest Service road or inside an area the permit designates, with the permit holder present and carrying the permit and a driver's license. Off limits: trees marked with orange paint, signs or flagging; standing trees, dead or alive; areas posted against firewood cutting or as timber sale areas; any species of cedar; and pieces longer than six feet. No heavy equipment, no yarding, meaning dragging wood out of the forest, and no blocking the road; slash goes within 18 inches of the ground. Chainsaws need a spark arrester, and each load carries the permit's dated load ticket on the back.

Then the fire rule. The permit is void whenever the Industrial Fire Precaution Level reaches 3 or higher. The IFPL is the state's four-step shutdown system for work in the woods, set by the Department of Natural Resources as needed in the summer fire season and posted by zone on its IFPL map; under WAC 332-24-301, Level 3 prohibits power saws except at loading sites and on tractor and skidder operations between 8 p.m. and 1 p.m., and Level 4 shuts everything down. Read the forest's alerts rather than its fire page, which in October 2026 still announced a July 23 campfire ban that an alert said was rescinded effective September 15, 2026.

How much firewood fits in a pickup?

About a cord in a long-bed pickup, by the Forest Service's rule of thumb; a short bed holds about half a cord and a standard truck about one and a half. The state Department of Agriculture agrees from the other side: a cord is a stack 4 feet by 8 feet filled 4 feet high, and most long-bed pickups, it notes, have beds close to 4 by 8.

Can you cut firewood on state land near Enumclaw?

Not in October 2026. DNR issues firewood permits region by region, and for the South Puget Sound Region, run from 950 Farman Ave. N. in Enumclaw, (360) 825-1631, its firewood page says only: "There are no available firewood permits." It allows cutting only where downed wood is left after timber harvests, and the buyers of those sales keep more of the branches themselves. The permits it does post, in five other regions in October 2026, are printed from its site and signed, and a Discover Pass, $45 a year or $10 a day as of October 2026, is required on DNR land.

The Southeast Region's permit, for the counties beyond Chinook Pass and valid May 1 to December 1 each year, shows what DNR asks: six cords a year for one household, personal use and not resale, no cedar, no standing trees, pieces of 7 feet or less, and unlawfully cut timber charged at triple value. The law underneath, RCW 79.15.400 through 79.15.440, dates to 1945 and still speaks of a $2.50 license for six cords of timber fit for nothing but firewood, or free cutting in areas DNR designates, with any violation a gross misdemeanor.

What about Mount Rainier, state parks and county parks?

No gathering in the national park. Federal park rules, in 36 CFR 2.1, bar using wood gathered inside a park unless the superintendent designates areas for it, and Mount Rainier's 2025 compendium designates berries and mushrooms for gathering and no wood. The park's campground page tells campers not to collect firewood, branches, twigs or cones, and asks that wood brought in come from within 50 miles. State parks keep a permit of their own: under WAC 352-32-290 a ranger may designate sites and times for collecting surplus wood debris, up to five cords per permit, for personal firewood only, and no park near Enumclaw was found offering it. King County's park code, section 7.12.515, bars removing any natural object from a park without the director's authorization.

How big is a cord, and what must the receipt say?

A cord is 128 cubic feet of wood "ranked and well stowed", meaning pieces parallel and touching in a compact stack. The rule is the method-of-sale regulation in the 2016 edition of NIST Handbook 130, which Washington adopts as law in WAC 16-662-105; it allows fireplace and stove wood to be sold only by the cord, fractions of a cord or the cubic meter, and only packaged wood under an eighth of a cord, kindling and bundles, goes by the cubic foot. The Department of Agriculture's firewood page puts the forbidden words plainly: "truckload," "face cord," "rack" or "pile" "have no legal definition and cannot, therefore, be used as a measure for the amount of firewood being sold."

The receipt is part of the law too. For any unpackaged wood the seller must hand over a delivery ticket or invoice with both parties' names and addresses, the date, the price, the quantity delivered and the quantity the price is based on, and the type and quality of the wood. The department also says to write down the seller's phone number and the truck's license plate, and to stack and measure before burning any of it. On enforcement it is candid: "Due to limited resources, we can only investigate chronic and repeat violators at this time." Its line is (360) 902-2035. Wood cut on the free permit may not be sold; resale takes the forest's Commercial Firewood Permit, of limited availability.

The counter on Roosevelt Avenue in Enumclaw

The Enumclaw office is the district's Highway 410 office; the forest says the Snoqualmie Ranger District was historically two districts, North Bend on Interstate 90 and White River on Highway 410. In 2020 both counters sold firewood permits five days a week at $20 for two cords; in 2026 the Enumclaw counter keeps two days and sends permit questions to North Bend. Older still is the town's trade in cut wood: the White River Lumber Company's mill cut 250,000 feet of lumber in an eight-hour day in 1925 and closed in 2003.

Can you burn it, and can you bring it from somewhere else?

A wood stove in Enumclaw answers to the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency, which calls air quality burn bans for King County when stagnant weather and fine-particle pollution are forecast. A Stage 1 ban stops fireplaces and uncertified stoves and inserts, and all outdoor burning, unless a stove is a home's only adequate heat and an exemption is approved; a Stage 2 ban stops pellet stoves and every wood-burning device, certified or not, with the same exemption for a home's only adequate heat. The status is on the agency's burn ban status page or at 800-595-4341. Fire-safety bans are the county fire marshal's, and the outdoor burn permit rules sort the two out.

Then the beetle rule. The Washington Invasive Species Council asks that firewood not be moved within the state, and says the state's firewood quarantine bars wood from outside Washington unless it is heat-treated and labeled as approved pest free. Its page cites a National Park Service guideline of ten miles or less from the destination; Mount Rainier's campground page and compendium say 50 miles.

Before you go

The morning you go, reread the forest's firewood page, call the office you plan to use, and check DNR's IFPL map and the forest's alerts page. The alert for the Enumclaw area, posted June 30, 2026 with no end date, lists Forest Road 73 washed out at Huckleberry Creek, Road 74 closed at its milepost 1 gate, Road 7550 closed by a washout and the Fairfax bridge on Road 78 closed for good. Forest roads may not be plowed, so this site's pass guide and chains belong in the truck. And if the wood comes by truck instead, write the plate number down before the first piece hits the ground.