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With heating oil prices on the rise, some people may be planing to heat their homes with more natural materials this winter, and they will soon be able to get fuel for free for their wood stoves.

The Kenai Peninsula Borough Spruce Bark Beetle Mitigation Program is opening a personal-use firewood gathering area in the North Cohoe Loop area -- 37 acres area off of Aurora Avenue, according to Duane Bannock, Spruce Bark Beetle Mitigation Program Manager.

This borough-owned parcel is scheduled to be open to all personal-use firewood permit holders only on Friday at 8 a.m. It will remain open while harvested wood is being removed from the forest for a period of three weeks.

There is no cutting of standing trees allowed, but participants will be able to reap the benefits of this "Thin and Pile" project.

"We have a contractor who goes out and removes dead and dying spruce trees" Bannock said. "He fells them, limbs them and then stacks them."

Personal-use permit holders can then come and harvest the wood.

Harvesters should not be dissuaded if occasionally the wood pile runs low.

"Rather than having the contractor do all the work first and make a giant log pile, the work by the contractor will be ongoing, six days a week," Bannock said. "So the log pile size may go up or down as people take from it."

The purpose of this program is to reduce wildfire fuels in the area, while simultaneously providing a firewood resource that is easy for residents to gather.

"People living in the area are excited about the project because we're removing a big fire danger," Bannock said. "We could have burned or buried the dead wood, but we thought this was a better use of the product."

This North Cohoe Loop project will be the fifth firewood gathering since the personal-use project began on July 1. The others have been at Mile 89.5 of the Sterling Highway, the corner of Ciechanski Road and Kalifornsky Beach Road, one in Homer, and last month's project off of North Miller Loop in Nikiski.

All existing Personal-Use Permit holders will be notified by mail with a site plan of the firewood area, and others interested in obtaining firewood can obtain a permit from the Spruce Bark Beetle Mitigation Program Office, 253 Wilson Lane, in the Office of Emergency Management building.

"The permits are free," Bannock said, and added that more than 1,000 borough residents now hold permits to harvest wood.

For further information and details about the project, contact the Spruce Bark Beetle Mitigation Program at 714-2430, or visit their Web site at http://www.borough.kenai.ak.us/sbb/pages/firewood.html.

Joseph Robertia can be reached at joseph.robertia@peninsulaclarion.com.