AMID the inflation surge that’s rippled through the U.S. economy and touched thousands upon thousands of products, one of the more obscure items on the list is firewood. It’s a fuel from earlier times, so niche an industry that no one appears to even try to track pricing on a national level. Talk to firewood vendors in state after state, though, and they’ll all tell you the same thing: Sales are booming on the eve of winter, and prices are soaring. At Firewood by Jerry in New River, Arizona, a cord of seasoned firewood — roughly 700 pieces or so — goes for US$200 today. That’s up 33 percent from a year ago. At Zia Firewood in Albuquerque, the price is up 11 percent since the summer to US$250. And at Standing Rock Farms in Stone Ridge, a bucolic, little town in the Hudson Valley that’s become popular with the Manhattan set, the best hardwoods now fetch US$475 a cord, up 19 percent from last year. “It’s crazy,” said Randy Hornbeck, the owner of Standing Rock Farms. His sales this year are already 27 percent higher than his total for all of last season. “Everybody wants firewood.” Some of this is a work-from-home thing. White-collar workers cooped up in their suburban homes or country escapes are re-discovering the joys of an evening by the fire. This is the typical Hornbeck client. But there’s a grimmer economic force driving the surge in demand, too: Soaring prices for heating oil, natural gas and propane — key parts of the broader inflation surge — are pushing many Americans to try heating their homes at least partially with firewood. At Central Arkansas Fireplaces in Conway, a suburb of Little Rock, the flood of orders for woodstoves has been so overwhelming that units purchased today won’t be delivered in time for this heating season. “You can’t get a stove until at least April,” said Lakin Frederick, an employee at the store.(SD-Agencies) | 