Selling Firewood on Your Campsite Without Breaking the Rules

Ask any camper what they remember most about a trip and a fair few will mention the fire before they mention the view. Selling firewood on your campsite is one of the easiest bits of extra income going, a couple of pounds a net, no booking system involved, cash or card straight into the till at reception. But since 2021 there has been a proper set of rules behind what you're allowed to sell, and getting it wrong isn't just a technicality. It can mean a visit from your local council's environmental health team and a fine that wipes out a season's worth of firewood profit in one go. Here's what the rules actually require, and the simplest way to stay on the right side of them without turning your honesty shop into a compliance project.

Why there are rules about firewood at all

Wood smoke is a bigger source of fine particle air pollution in the UK than road traffic in many areas, and the difference between a clean burning fire and a smoky one usually comes down to one thing: how wet the wood is. Damp, unseasoned logs burn cooler and dirtier, throwing out far more smoke and particulate matter than the same log seasoned properly. Government policy since 2021 has been aimed squarely at getting wet wood off the market, not at stopping anyone lighting a fire.

What the regulations actually say

In England, the rules come from the Air Quality (Domestic Solid Fuels Standards) Regulations 2020, which took effect on 1 May 2021. Scotland and Wales have since brought in near identical requirements under their own clean air legislation, so if you're not in England the numbers below almost always still apply, but it's worth a quick check of your own nation's rules if you're unsure.

The core requirement is this: any wood sold in units smaller than two cubic metres must have a moisture content of 20 percent or less, and must carry the Ready to Burn logo to prove it. That covers exactly the kind of thing most campsites sell, small bags and nets of logs from reception or an honesty shop. Wood sold in bulk loads of two cubic metres or more is exempt from the moisture limit, but it has to come with clear guidance telling the buyer to season it themselves before burning. For a campsite selling the odd net at a time, that bulk exemption isn't really relevant. You're selling small units, so the Ready to Burn standard is the one that matters.

Do you need to certify your own firewood?

This is the part that puts owners off, and it's usually more straightforward than it looks. There are two routes.

The easy route: sell certified logs from a supplier

If you buy in pre-packed nets or bags that already carry the Ready to Burn logo from an approved supplier, you can simply resell them as they are. The certification sits with the producer, not with you, so a campsite acting as a retailer of already-certified firewood has nothing further to register or test. This is by far the simplest way to sell firewood as a small side line, and most local firewood merchants and builders' merchants now stock Ready to Burn certified stock as standard, so it's rarely hard to source.

The harder route: sell your own logs

If you're cutting and seasoning your own wood, perhaps from fallen trees or hedge trimmings on site, and want to sell it in small bags rather than as an uncertified bulk load, you need to prove the moisture content yourself. That means buying a cheap moisture meter, testing a freshly split log face rather than the weathered outer surface, and keeping it under 20 percent before it goes on sale. Wood typically needs a full season, and often closer to a year or two depending on the species, stacked off the ground and under cover with airflow on at least two sides, to get there. If you want to sell it under your own name in small units you'll also need to register through an approved certification scheme such as Woodsure's Ready to Burn scheme, which involves an audit of your process. For most sites, buying in certified stock and reselling it is the far less hassle option, and it frees you up to spend the time on the campsite rather than on firewood paperwork.

Kindling, firelighters and smoke control areas

Kindling and manufactured firelighters aren't covered by the same moisture rules as logs, since they're not classed as wet wood in the same way, though anything you sell should obviously still be safe and dry. The other thing worth a mention, even though it rarely affects rural sites, is smoke control areas. These are zones, usually in towns and cities, where only authorised fuels can be burned at all. Almost no UK campsite sits inside one, but if yours happens to be close to a built up area it's worth a quick check with your local council, since it can affect what solid fuel you're allowed to sell as well as burn.

Making firewood work as part of your site

Once the compliance side is sorted, firewood is one of the better small revenue lines a site can run. A few things make it work well in practice:

• Keep stock dry and covered, ideally in a store guests can see, since a damp pile under a tarp doesn't inspire confidence even if the wood inside is perfectly compliant
• Price by the net rather than by weight, it's simpler for guests to understand and quicker for you at the till
• Sell it as an add-on at booking or check-in rather than only at the honesty shop, so guests who fancy a fire have already budgeted for it before they arrive
• Pair it with a bag of kindling and firelighters as a bundle, most guests would rather buy one "fire kit" than three separate items
• Keep a small offcuts bin by the fire pits for guests who run short late in the evening, it saves a walk back to reception and often turns into another sale anyway

If you're running everything else through CampSuite's extras and add-ons, firewood is one of the simplest things to set up as a paid extra guests can add when they book or check in, rather than something you have to remember to mention in person. It sits alongside your other on-site purchases and shows up cleanly on the guest's invoice, which matters if anyone ever asks what a charge on their bill was for.

It's also worth having a written fire policy for guests, covering where fires are allowed, whether raised fire pits are required to protect the grass, and what time fires need to be out by. We've covered the practical side of this in our guide to campsite campfire and fire pit rules, and if firewood is going to be one of several things you sell from reception, our honesty shop guide covers pricing and stock control for that side of things too.

A quick compliance checklist

• If you sell logs in bags or nets under two cubic metres, they must be Ready to Burn certified with a moisture content of 20 percent or less
• Buying in already-certified stock and reselling it needs no further registration on your part
• Selling your own cut and seasoned wood in small units means testing moisture yourself and registering through an approved certification scheme
• Bulk sales of two cubic metres or more are exempt from the moisture rule but must carry guidance to season before burning
• Check your own nation's exact regulations if you're outside England, the standard is almost always the same but it's worth confirming

The takeaway

Selling firewood on your campsite is a small job with a real upside, but it only works if the wood you're selling is actually legal to sell. For almost every site, the sensible path is to buy in Ready to Burn certified stock from a supplier and resell it as a simple, priced extra, rather than trying to certify your own. Get that one decision right and the rest, storage, pricing, and turning it into a proper add-on rather than an afterthought, is straightforward. If you'd like firewood and every other extra you sell to sit neatly alongside bookings, payments and guest messages in one place, CampSuite is free to get started and takes about fifteen minutes to set up.