Firewood BTU Table
| Species | Scientific name | MBTU per cord |
|---|---|---|
| Osage orange | Maclura pomifera | 30.7 |
| Hickory (shagbark, bitternut, mockernut, pignut) | Carya ovata, cordiformis, tomentosa, glabra | 28.0 |
| Ironwood / hop hornbeam | Ostrya virginiana | 27.3 |
| Hornbeam / blue beech | Ostrya virginiana | 26.8 |
| Black birch | Betula lenta | 26.8 |
| Honey locust | Gleditsia triacanthos | 26.7 |
| White oak group | Quercus spp. | 25.7 |
| Sugar maple | Acer saccharum | 24.0 |
| Red oak group | Quercus spp. | 24.0 |
| White ash | Fraxinus americana | 23.6 |
| Yellow birch | Betula alleghaniensis | 23.6 |
| Hackberry | Celtis occidentalis | 20.8 |
| Paper birch group | Betula papyrifera, populifolia, nigra | 20.3 |
| Black walnut | Juglans nigra | 20.2 |
| Black cherry | Prunus serotina | 19.9 |
| Red & silver maple | Acer rubrum, saccharinum | 18.7 |
A cord is a volume, not a promise: the stack on the previous table holds 128 cubic feet whether it is dense shagbark hickory or airy poplar, but the heat inside it ranges by half again. The ladder below ranks sixteen common species by millions of BTU per cord at a realistic 20 percent moisture - osage orange tops it at 30.7, the hickory family holds 28.0, white oak 25.7, and red or silver maple trails at 18.7.
The ranking is also a price decoder, because nobody sells wood by the BTU. Divide the asking price by the species' MBTU figure and you get the only number that matters: dollars per million BTU. A $240 cord of sugar maple (24.0) beats a $260 cord of red maple (18.7) by a wide margin - the cheaper-looking cord is the expensive heat.
Two honest boundaries on the table: it ranks Northeastern hardwoods (the species most commonly sold as cords), and the numbers assume seasoned wood - green wood burns a third of its energy just boiling off water, which is why the seasoning calendar matters as much as the species choice.
How to use
- Find your species in the ladder and read its MBTU-per-cord figure - that is the heat you are buying per 128-cubic-foot stack.
- Divide the local price per cord by that figure to get dollars per million BTU, and compare sellers on that number rather than the sticker price.
- Match the species to the job: 24+ MBTU hardwoods for overnight heating and coaling, the 18-21 band for shoulder-season fires where a slower, cooler burn is fine.
Frequently asked questions
What firewood has the highest BTU per cord?
Osage orange, at about 30.7 million BTU per cord - roughly 60 percent more heat than red or silver maple. The practical runners-up are the hickory family (28.0), ironwood (27.3) and black birch or hornbeam (26.8 each). Dense, slow-growing hardwoods dominate the top of the table; fast-grown soft maples sit at the bottom. Where you live decides what is actually on the market, so use the ladder as a relative scale.
How much heat is in a cord of red oak?
About 24 million BTU, and Penn State's benchmark makes it tangible: one cord of seasoned northern red oak produces heat equivalent to burning roughly 159 gallons of fuel oil. That equivalence is why cord pricing tracks oil prices loosely over the years - both are competing for the same home-heating dollar, and the wood wins hardest when oil is expensive.
Is it worth paying more for high-BTU firewood?
It is worth paying per BTU, not per cord. Work an example: at $300 for hickory (28.0 MBTU) you pay about $10.70 per million BTU; at $240 for red maple (18.7) you pay $12.80. The hickory is cheaper heat at a higher sticker price. High-BTU species also coal better and burn longer per load, which matters for overnight fires - the premium buys convenience as well as arithmetic.
Why is softwood not on the table?
Softwoods (pine, spruce, fir) are sold and burned, especially in the West and for kindling, but they complicate a per-cord ladder: their resin carries good energy per pound while their low density means far less weight per cord, so heat per cord drops into the low teens. Resin also throws more sparks and creosote into the flue. Per-pound energy is a different metric than per-cord energy - this table keeps the per-cord view that cord buyers actually pay in.