Last December's ice storm left lots of firewood behind, often free for the taking. Fuel oil prices are some $2 a gallon lower than they were last year. That adds up to bad news for local firewood dealers.

"It's horrible, the absolute worst year I've had in 10 years," Schuyler Vicnaire said yesterday.

Vicnaire owns Land Cleaners of Southern NH in Sandown. Firewood is a side business for him, but it's not generating a lot of income this year.

"The ice storm gave people a lot of free firewood. Fuel prices are very good," Vicnaire said. "My price is as low as I can drop it. Everyone I talk to is in about the same boat."

He's selling hardwood that's been seasoned six to eight months for $250 a cord, split and delivered. The average price of firewood in Southern New Hampshire is hovering around $300 for dry wood, a little less for green.

Vicnaire's ice storm theory is borne out by Fred Borman, a forest educator with the University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension.

A Derry farmer and his son cut 15 cords of storm-damaged wood last winter, Borman said, giving them two years worth of wood at very little cost.

Vicnaire said he thinks heating with wood is "almost a thing of the past." It's a lot easier to turn up the thermostat than it is to tend a wood stove — and expend a lot of time and energy splitting, stacking and handling firewood.

"This time of year, we should be going nonstop, but we've got just a handful of orders," he said.

That trend is reflected in wood stove sales, too.

Freestanding wood stove sales are few and far between at Fireplace Village in Salem, according to manager Ben Preble.

"Most people are putting gas or wood inserts inside fireplaces to make them more efficient. That's the majority of my sales the past two seasons," he said. "They figure they already have the opening and are putting in those models."

Fireplaces are generally considered to be inefficient sources of heat, but lots of homes have them. Rather than buying a whole new system, people prefer to utilize the fireplace they have and make it more efficient with a wood or gas insert, Preble said.

Pellet stove sales come and go, he said. The store couldn't keep them in stock in 2005 and 2008, but they're not selling well this year, Preble said.

"In this industry, I think it's driven either by the economy or natural disasters," he said. "The ice storm changed people's thinking for a while."

And it did change the availability of firewood for a lot of people, especially in Rockingham County.

"There was a lot of (tree) damage in Derry and Londonderry, and there was wood piled up alongside the roads everywhere," Borman said. "Last December's ice storm was a unique situation where people just wanted to see the stuff gone."

Costas Tonas of Fremont has another theory about the drop in demand for firewood — laziness.

"I think demand is definitely down because people have gotten lazy," the firewood dealer said. "People would rather just walk to the thermostat and turn it on."

Tonas, who's been in the business for 22 years, sells about 1,500 cords of wood annually. This year, he's selling dry wood for $290 a cord, green for $210. But he said he's not making much money at those prices.

He said the low cost of oil and the sluggish economy are definitely affecting sales this fall.

"It's definitely the busy time of year," he said yesterday, "but customers currently don't have a lot of money to spend."

But John Pinkham of Londonderry, whose business is Firewood Guy, caters to people who do have more money to spend. He sells smaller quantities of kiln-dried hardwood from Boston to the Lakes Region, from the seacoast to Worcester.

"We have high-end wood customers. Most of the firewood is used for ambiance," he said. "It's still used for heating purposes, but we don't sell to people who use four, five, six cords a year."

Most of Pinkham's customers have fireplaces; he delivers and stacks the wood that fuels them.

"It's for ambiance use. They want a fire for two or three hours a night," he said. "Let's face it, they want it for aesthetic reasons."

Heating with wood was in vogue in the 1970s and early 1980s, when fuel oil prices went through the roof, Borman said. But that trend has been waning pretty much ever since.

"It's a very labor-intensive commodity. They have to cut the tree down, process it, cut into lengths, split it and transport it. It is a very expensive proposition," he said. "The drop in fuel prices has hurt them and will continue to do so."

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