How to identify doug fir

Hemlock is easy to id when alive, so long as you can see its top. The very tip will be drooped over. If you see that you got a hemlock.

 

What about right under the bark? Does red for have a ?cork? Between the bark and wood its self?

 

I don't usually fell live trees I'm on national forestry land and they don't like u chopping there green trees down lol

 

Welcome to FHC Steven,

 

mind if i ask what bar and chain combo your dealer put on your 261, i heard out your way they use 3/8 on them , mine has .325 and i have not used it yet due to 6 feet of snow and was thinking of changing it to 3/8 as all our other saws are 3/8 or 3/8 picco just to keep bars and chains interchangable between saws and 1 less file size

thanks

 

Welcome to the club, SS!!

 

it came with .325. Im on the same train as you as i want to swap to 3\8 to make my bars/chains interchangeable and get away from the saftey chains. But my stihl dealer wants 70$ for the sprocket!

 

Got out and shot some pictures this morning. It is nearly impossible to tell the difference from the bark.


Doug fir on the left, white fir right. The lighter color on the white fir is lichens.
Higher up on the tree, the white fir bark is lighter in color and smoother. Close to the top it is nearly white and very smooth. I save the doug fir bark, it makes great barbeque fuel. I burn the white fir bark on the burn pile.

Here are some splits.

Doug fir


White fir

 

wow thanks a million on those pictures, so really red at the heart like others have said. Are those splits seasonned? Will the color be the same in a slighty green tree?

 

I'm not sure who Doug Fir is, so I probably wouldn't be of much help in identifying him. Is he the guy from The Peoples Court that used to do the interviews at the end of the show? Been years since I've seen the reruns. That Judge Wapner was an interesting fella. Anyways, welcome to the site and I hope you find what you're looking for.

 

I think that was Doug Llewelyn

 

The doug fir is 2 years old, the white fir is green. The lighter portions of the doug fir may have yellowed some since being split, the reddish color will still be obvious in green wood.

 

its a great saw ive had a 55 rancher, 455 rancher, jonsred and a ms 271 and it is the best one out of all of them. Jonsred close second though

 

There is a lot of misconception as to what is 'white fir' in the PNW. Also a lot of misconception about Doug fir, which is not really a fir. To start, Doug fir is easily ID'd by the cones. They are usually about 2 inches long and they are the only ones with small tongues sticking out of them. Here is the typical example of a Doug fir cone:



Douglas fir is commonly called red fir in eastern Oregon and Idaho because it has red tinted heartwood. But Doug fir is not a true fir, and is in its own genus, Pseudotsuga. That means false hemlock. They have been classified with the firs and with hemlocks at different times, and the name has been changed many times in its botanical past. It now stands alone. It is also the second tallest tree in the world, second only to the Coastal Redwood in height. There are several sub-species that grow in the western US and they can fool you into thinking they are other species of trees. The cones always give them away though.

White fir may be one of several different true fir species, including white fir. White fir only grows at elevation above 3,000 feet in the western US. There are two sub-species, a taller type in the Sierra Nevada and Klamath mountains toward the west, and a shorter higher altitude type (5,000 ft.) in the Rocky mountains. The western type of white fir looks a lot like red fir (true red fir, not Doug fir), and the best way to tell the difference between white and red fir is to twirl the needles between your fingers. Red fir needles are square and will roll easy between your fingers, whereas white fir needles are flat and will not.

What are more typically called white fir in Oregon and Washington are one of several species, usually either Grand fir or Pacific Silver fir. These two species grow at lower elevations down to sea level and they look the same from a distance. Pacific Silver and Grand firs both have white streaks on the undersides of flat needles to distinguish them from other types of firs. They look like this:



To tell them apart, Grand firs have very flat sprays of needles, whereas Silver firs do not. Some people also mistake western Hemlock for white fir, but they are also easy to ID. Hemlocks always have a curled over central leader on them. Hemlocks have adapted to grow in shade, and the curled over leader will push its way up through the tree boughs as it grows. The tops of hemlocks look like this:



Hemlocks also have small short needles in tight patters and distinctive cones. There is also a species of mountain Hemlock here that has larger cones and grows at higher elevation. White fir, Grand fir, Pacific Siler fir and western hemlock all have white colored lighter density wood. It is pretty hard to tell them apart once they are processed. I have Doug fir, Hemlock, and Pacific Silver fir in my stacks now that I am burning. Doug fir is easy to spot, because of the red heartwood that looks just like this (and why it is commonly called red fir):

 

Douglas Fir

 

Yes, and the 20" bar on my still 290 came from the dealer with 3/8". I had to cut from both sides on that Doug fir log.

I am happy to burn any fir whether Doug, white, red, or silver.

 

The 291 i looked at was .325on a 20"

 

Amazing info. I came to the right site for sure! Thanks a million.

 

I think the Stihl dealers pretty much set everything up 3/8ths .050 around here
I have only owned 3 saws myself a 290, 361 and 362 and they are all set up that way from the dealer and pretty much everything I see on C/L is as well