People were panic-buying more than toilet paper in March as demand for firewood started months ahead of schedule and bushfires wiped out stockpiles, leaving suppliers scrambling to meet the need.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Peter Dimmock from Rural Firewood Supplies has been inundated with orders since the start of the year.
"Normally we don't really get going until the middle of April and our phone started ringing in February,' he said.
On Thursday, in a matter of hours, 25 tonne of firewood was cleared from the Fyshwick yard, the next truckload due to arrive the same afternoon.
"I just cannot get enough," he said.
Demand has doubled from last year and Mr Dimmock said he can't keep up.
"The blokes I get all my wood off up in Queensland are run off their feet," he said.
"We're on a rotating roster, so one truck goes to Sydney, one to Melbourne, one to Canberra.
"I'm only getting two trucks a week, I need five trucks a week."
Mr Dimmock sources red box, yellow box and iron bark from Queensland and Western NSW suppliers.
Bushfires wiped out firewood stockpiles on the NSW South Coast and coronavirus lock downs led to high demand, pressure on those wholesalers has ramped up.
Dane McGreevey from the Firewood Association of Australia said bushfires knocked out small, locally-based suppliers posing a long-term issue for the industry.
"They've lost machinery, they've lost the ability to cut more firewood," he said.
"Even if wood was available today to split up, they actually don't have the machinery or the vehicles to be able to do it."
Mitchell-based supplier Corkhill Bros was among the Canberra suppliers impacted by the bushfires.
For the first time in 40 years they haven't sold firewood after their facility and stockpile near Batlow was destroyed in the New Year's Eve blaze.
Phil Corkhill said they had started to rebuild and hoped to be back in operation for next season.
Sapphire Coast Firewood was also impacted by bushfires.
Mr McGreevey said the South Pambula-based business was a large supplier for Canberra and the region.
However, the pandemic had a bigger impact on the 2020 season, Mr McGreevey said.
"[Firewood suppliers] were operating in middle-of-winter levels but in March, which is of course unheard of," Mr McGreevey said.
"It wasn't that cold, it wasn't that wet, there wasn't a need for it but the panic-buying set in."
As the pandemic worsened and stay at home orders came into place, Mr McGreevey said people were more inclined to make use of their fireplace.
"The people who only used the fireplace as a secondary heating source ... now have the time or the inclination to fire up their wood fire because they're spending more time at home," he said.
Mr Dimmock has been fielding hundreds of calls a day taking more orders, and although the season typically starts to wind down at the end of this month, he anticipated that wouldn't be the case this year.
"I think demand is going to be quite big because people have run out of wood this year and I think people will stock up," he said.
"I'm trying to get my customers to stock up over summer to take the pressure off us [next winter]."