Moving firewood in Indiana: state property rule and the walnut quarantine
What the Indiana Department of Natural Resources says about firewood on state properties, the compliance stamp for sellers, and the external quarantine on walnut material and hardwood firewood from 15 listed states.
Checked against the sources at the bottom of this page on October 8, 2026. Rules, fees and pay change: the source has the last word.
This page reports what the official source says. It is not legal advice: ask the office named here. Indiana has no single statewide firewood movement rule on the pages read. It has a firewood rule for state properties and a separate quarantine tied to thousand cankers disease of walnut.
The rule on state properties
The Indiana DNR firewood rules page says firewood may be brought into a state park, reservoir, state forest or state fish and wildlife area in four cases.
- It is kiln dried scrap lumber with no bark.
- It is bought from the property camp store or an on-site firewood vendor.
- It comes from the visitor's home or another Indiana location and has all bark removed.
- It bears a state or a USDA compliance stamp.
The page gives 140 as the number of known pests and pathogens that can be moved in firewood. Its question and answer section says pine firewood needs its bark removed too, because pests and pathogens can travel in pine. It says wood that does not follow the rule may be confiscated and a citation may be issued.
The compliance stamp for sellers
The same page says the Division of Entomology and Plant Pathology certifies Indiana businesses that sell firewood. Vendors selling firewood on state properties at camp stores must get a state compliance stamp, and vendors with a valid state compliance agreement are listed on the division's website. It says there is no fee for the service and that a map gives contact details for the local compliance officer. Wood with the federal stamp is described as typically bundled in plastic with a label that carries the stamp, sold at grocery stores, department stores and gas stations, and the page says processing methods include heat treatment or fumigation.
In addition, the Don't Move Firewood Indiana summary, marked accurate as of March 2026, repeats the four cases and adds that parks and campgrounds often have their own firewood policies.
The walnut quarantine
The DNR thousand cankers disease page says Indiana set up an external quarantine in 2011 against the walnut twig beetle and thousand cankers disease. It lists what is restricted from entry: walnut nursery stock, budwood, scionwood, logs, stumps, roots, branches and chips, and all species of hardwood firewood. The states it names are Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Maryland, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia and Washington. Not restricted: walnut nuts, nut meats and hulls, processed lumber without bark, kiln dried lumber and finished wood products without bark. A compliance agreement for regulated items comes through an Indiana compliance officer.
- The page says movement of black walnut inside Indiana is not restricted.
- For walnut leaving Indiana, it says a few states began to quarantine walnut from Indiana after the fungus was found on a native beetle, that the beetle has since been judged not an effective vector, and that most states have removed or are removing those quarantines. Restrictions vary by state.
- It records the fungus Geosmithia morbida isolated from the native weevil Stenomimus pallidus in a black walnut plantation in Yellowwood State Forest, Brown County, in December 2013, and the first walnut twig beetle detection in Franklin County in samples from the 2014 trapping season.
The two pages do not list the same states. The firewood rules page says the firewood quarantine applies to states with thousand cankers disease "including" Tennessee, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia and Pennsylvania, so the longer list on the walnut page is the fuller one.
For other states and provinces see the table on moving wood and firewood.