Firewood does indeed attract ticks. It provides ideal conditions for ticks to live and, if not properly maintained, to thrive.
Our ancestors have relied on fire for hundreds of thousands of years for survival, and although these days as a society we aren’t regularly lighting fires to ensure our longevity, we still use it to keep the house warm in the winter months or to enjoy the outdoors on a camping trip.
By extension, we depend pretty heavily on firewood. Many small insects – such as ticks, are attracted to the conditions created by the usual storage of firewood and consider it an ideal place to build their nests. In this article, we’re going to be discussing why this is an issue, and how to prevent the presence of ticks in your firewood.
What Is a Tick and Why Is It Dangerous?
Before we get into the nitty-gritty of preventing these pests from making a home in your firewood, let’s talk about exactly what a tick is:
A member of the arachnid class (which also includes scorpions, spiders, and mites), a tick is a parasite that varies in appearance depending on the stage of its lifecycle that it is in. Adults can grow up to ⅛ of an inch in length, and throughout their lifespan they feed on blood predominantly from birds and mammals.
Because of their diet of blood, the species on a whole is notorious for carrying diseases, most notoriously Lyme Disease. It’s not uncommon to hear of dogs with ticks or the occasional human who suffers a bite, and if the tick in question has previously bitten another infected animal, pathogens can be spread between animals and humans.
While having ticks nesting in your firewood will not impact the integrity of the wood or its ability to burn, it does increase your proximity to a parasite that can potentially cause a myriad of unenviable symptoms and complications for your health.
What Sorts of Conditions Attract Ticks?
In short, firewood is an ideal environment for ticks to live and thrive if not properly maintained. Ticks are attracted to a number of conditions, many of which (unfortunately) tend to resemble the outdoors and areas where firewood is most often stored. Ticks enjoy moist, humid environments, and gravitate towards decomposing and overgrown vegetation.
This parasite thrives in grassy or wooded areas which are the same sorts of habitats where small rodents and woodland creatures reside.
If you consider all of the above, it begins to make sense that the natural, dark and moist environment that a pile of wood creates is an appealing location to a tick looking to build its nest.
Which Ticks Are Attracted to Firewood?
Almost all species of tick enjoy the grassy, wooded environments outlined just above, so it’s pretty safe to say that an improperly stored wood stack is vulnerable to most kinds of this parasite. Hard-shell Ticks are a major culprit of infestation in outdoor areas, as opposed to the soft-shell ticks who tend to enjoy a more enclosed burrow or dark cave-like environment to build their nests.
It comes as no surprise that Wood Ticks enjoy infiltrating stacks of wood, alongside Blacklegged ticks, American dog ticks, Gulf Coast Ticks, and Lone star ticks, all of which can be found in locations around North America.
How to Prevent Ticks From Infesting Firewood:
As much as firewood can provide the perfect environment for ticks to nest and live, there are also many strategies you can use to make sure your wood remains parasite-free.
Keep your firewood dry. Ensuring that piles of wood remain dry is a way to remove the moisture that is so enticing to ticks. You can do this by having a cover over the top of your firewood, which can be as simple as using plastic sheeting or a tarp, or as solid as storing it under a roofed area.
While it’s vital to keep the top of the firewood covered, it’s equally important to ensure the sides are exposed to air, so any moisture that the wood does absorb has a way to escape. Avoid stacking it against a house or shed to optimize airflow. When camping or in the great outdoors, expose firewood to sunlight and heat, and keep it covered in cold and wet environments.
The easiest way to store and season your firewood is with a firewood log rack like this one by Woodhaven. Its structural integrity is very sound, and will keep your firewood off of the ground. It also comes with its own cover that will cover the top 12″ of your firewood.
Store firewood off the ground, and maintain the environment. Storing wood on a concrete slab or shelf creates a barrier between the soil and your pile of firewood, preventing the migration of ticks. Similarly, keeping your garden and lawn area well maintained reduces the likelihood of ticks being present around your firewood in the first place. Remove any junk from your yard and regularly mow long grassy areas to prevent overgrowth of your garden.
Make sure your firewood stays rodent-free! Rodents such as mice, squirrels, and rats are targets for blood-thirsty ticks – so being sure of the absence of these animals in your firewood removes a tick attractant. Standard pest control methods like using bait, traps, and keeping the area clean go a long way in preventing the chain of events that can end in parasitic tick infestations.
Inspect firewood Regardless of how you source your firewood, inspecting it is essential before purchasing or relocating it.
Final Thoughts
Firewood can provide prime conditions for parasitic ticks to live, build their nests, and thrive if not properly maintained. Infestations don’t damage your firewood because ticks are carnivorous and a bit vampire-y (because they survive on blood exclusively!), but they are often a sign of other pests like rodents that can compromise the integrity of your wood.
However – the good news is that having ticks living in your firewood is not inevitable, and it is not only completely possible but also relatively easy to prevent an infestation of ticks from taking over your supply.
Simple choices, like keeping your wood stack dry and away from long grassy areas go a long way to preventing unwanted infestations. Taking steps to eradicate these pests from your firewood is also taking steps to protecting your own health, and continuing to enjoy warm crackling fireplaces and campfires.