How To Carry Firewood When Camping

A crackling fire is a nostalgic part of any camping trip. Part of that process is of course gathering firewood, which can be a pain.

Unless you are in an organized campground that provides firewood, this means scavenging the local area for firewood and hauling it back to your campsite.

You could go out and gather it arm full after arm full, but that is messy, and slow and generally leads to bugs (spiders) on you. Trust me on this. The obvious solution then is to cut your wood up into manageable lengths and use some sort of carrier.

The question then is what kind of carrier.

How To Carry Firewood

The best way to carry firewood when camping is either to use a pre-made canvas firewood carrier, or to use a rope firewood carrier which you can either buy or easily make yourself. These let you carry much more wood with a lot less mess and is easier on your arm. Below are some examples of both.

Premade Canvas Wood Carriers

On the easy end of the solutions are the pre-made canvas wood carriers.

These are super handy, generally durable, and great for carrying cut-up wood. I particularly like that they carry small wood and pinecones easily, which is great for when you are gathering small wood to start your fire with.

Additionally, when you aren’t using them for carrying firewood, they make great totes for the rest of your gear.

Wood and Paracord Wood Carrier

If you prefer to go more minimalist, then some cord and a couple of pieces of wood will work as an improvised wood carrier. This video shows exactly how to rig ones up.

This is a cheap, compact, and efficient solution for carrying firewood back to your camp and your campfire.

Cheap Improvised Wood Carrier

If you are a repurposing fanatic, one ingenious idea is to take an old reusable grocery bag as a wood carrier. All you need to do is cut slits down the sides leaving one long strip of material with a handle on each end. Not the most elegant or durable of wood carriers, but it will do the job, at least for a little while. Plus it is super inexpensive.

Bringing Bigger Wood Back To Camp

Admittedly, I’m more of a fan of bringing logs back to camp and cutting them up there. That or just jamming them in the fire as is…

The hard part is getting them back to camp. Carrying them sucks and dragging them by hand isn’t any better. The answer of course is some sort of towing strap.

You could use paracord, but that is hard to pull on. Typically I rely on half of an old ratchet strap, but recently I found something better.

They make straps like I’ve been using but with a nice handle. The picture is of the one from Multus and it works a lot better than just the strap alone.

Don’t Bring Firewood With You

One thing that needs to mention is that it is a bad idea to bring firewood with you camping as you can inadvertently transport bugs in the wood that can spread and harm forests. So whenever you go camping, get your wood locally.

Instead, use one of the tools above to scavenge your wood in your local campsite. If you go looking early and use one of the tools above, you can wander a little farther afield and find some good firewood.

Don’t Overlook Firelogs

On the topic of sourcing firewood, If you are mostly car camping, don’t overlook bringing along a few pressed wood logs. Especially if you are buying wood that is of lower quality, a few pressed wood logs will help keep your fire going longer and hotter.

Your best bet is to look for a farm co-op. They often times will have the logs in bulk for about a dollar apiece. Shop around, prices vary considerably!