Laurel.... seasoning & burning

[Sair33]

Hi,
We have a lot of laurel in our (almost!!) wood.
I've heard various things about laurel....
I've heard it's poisonous... gloves should be used when cutting, and that it gives out cyanide fumes when burnt. But also that it burns with a lovely flame.
Potentially we'd want to use it as campfires in the woodland, and maybe in our log burner at home.

Has anyone had any experience of this, and do you know how long it needs to be seasoned for?

Thanks

[oldclaypaws]

I nearly bought a wood which had quite a large Laurel presence and looked into this. The actual 'cherries' are edible, they have a mild almond taste (a tiny non-harmful trace of cyanide), birds like them. Laurel leaves do contain cyanide, crushing them and putting them in a jar with an insect will kill it, a technique used by butterfly collectors. If livestock ate Laurel leaves they would be either very ill or die.

As such, do not burn the leaves on a camp fire, anything downwind of it will be at risk of breathing problems and harm. Just let them decay. Brushing up against laurel leaves isn't dangerous though, so don't be paranoid about them. The sap might be irritating, so as you say wear gloves if cutting.

The logs make brilliant fuel in a woodburner and burn hot with a pretty blue flame, but you need to season it well for maybe a year to ensure all the cyanide traces have degraded (its not stable, just in the sap, and eventually goes after the wood dries). Don't burn the wet wood in a camp fire, wait for it to season.

[Sair33]

That's really useful... thankyou very much

[Dave and Verity]

We have a large, 15 feet plus high laurel hedge. We burn the wood when dry, it burns extremely hot and spits continuously, when you open the wood burner door, masses of little embers sparkle out. It's a bit of a firework display, and not to be recommended if you are wearing your new christmas present shirt. I tend to use it very sparingly.

The leafy branches we burn outside, even slightly dry they burn spectacularly and you need to be cautious as it can get out of hand in terms of height of flame.

Have had no experience of skin problems with it.

Dave