RENO - Falling temperatures and rising fuel oil prices have people looking to firewood dealers to help them stay warm this winter. But they're finding that the cost of wood is going up along with the wait.
''We're busier than heck. It's just rush hour right now,'' Billy Owens, owner of H&O Firewood in Reno, said Monday. ''People are calling in left and right. We're booked on deliveries two to three weeks out.''
And with the high price of gasoline, a must for trucking wood out of the mountains, Owens expects to boost his price per cord by as much as 15 percent this year.
Right now, he charges $160 for a cord of pine, about the same as a year ago. For hardwoods, it's more: $240 for walnut and $260 for almond, both imported from California.
So far, that hasn't slowed the orders.
''We can't keep it in the yard. They buy it as fast as we ship it in,'' he said.
Elsewhere in western Nevada, it's all businesses can do to keep up.
At T-N-T Firewood in Mound House east of Carson City, only softwood pine is available at $150 a cord. A telephone message pleads for customers' patience. ''We just get swamped,'' the message says. ''We'll get to you when we can.''
Steve Freeman, owner of Cascade Firewood in Reno, said many of his customers wait until the last minute to order.
''It looks like we might have a shortage,'' he said. ''It's hard to get wood. It's a lot of work, and fewer people are cutting wood.''
But at the north end of Lake Tahoe, business is off from a year ago at Woodfuel Technology, which sells firewood in the Tahoe Vista-Kings Beach-Incline Village area.
Operator Dave McClure cites two reasons: Last year's Y2K fears, which led to stockpiling against widespread power failures, and last winter's relatively mild season.
McClure told the Reno Gazette-Journal it's too early tell whether this year's rising natural gas and other energy prices will help bolster his firewood business.
''We need a full month of really cold temperatures,'' he said. ''Then they'll get their bills. If it's $250 when it was $150 a year ago, then they'll be freaked out.''
