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As policy and stoves change in the Tongass National Forest, a local group with a long history of service with the U.S. Forest Service decided it can no longer supply firewood to the public-use cabins on Admiralty Island.

Juneau-based Territorial Sportsmen Inc. said it won't be able to provide firewood because of a new rule this year that bars people from using chain saws to cut wood on the island in the Kootznoowoo Wilderness, 15 miles southeast of Juneau in the Forest Service-run Tongass National Forest.

"It takes 10 times as long with a crew to use two-man, cross-cut saws versus the chain saw, which can do it in hours," said Ron Somerville, Territorial Sportsmen board member. "They're essentially destroying this cooperative agreement with us."

Somerville deplored the changes that ended the 27-year-long partnership between his group and the Forest Service. The Territorial Sportsmen organized in the 1940s and built many of the cabins in Southeast Alaska as well as maintained them.

"TSI has done a lot more for us than cabin work," said Phil Sammon, Tongass spokesman. "It would be a shame to see them try to distance themselves over this policy change. We value their partnership, definitely."

The change in firewood supplier won't matter to recreational users so much once the Forest Service finishes converting nearly all the cabin stoves in the Tongass from wood to fuel oil, though. That's a project begun several years ago and slated to finish this year and next, according to Sammon.

Three of the 14 cabins on the cross-Admiralty canoe route will keep their wood-burning stoves so that canoers don't have to carry fuel oil, he said.

The Forest Service has generally supplied firewood to wood-burning cabins, and asked cabin users to bring their own fuel for oil-burning stoves.

Fuel oil hit historic high prices this year. But Sammon said the cost of maintaining wood-burning stoves was higher than oil stoves: about $2,000 each time to send a wood-cutting crew for a few days to Admiralty. And the wilderness rules apply just as well to the agency as everyone else.

"We're not going to be traipsing out there with chain saws, either," Sammon said.

Tongass management has been squeezing everywhere it can these days, as it's now dealing with a 20 percent budget cut from past years. The recreational budget, which includes cabin maintenance, is about 9 percent of the overall Tongass budget, according to Sammon.

Sammon also said Tongass cabin users would benefit from consistency across the cabins, because they'd know what they needed to carry.

But Somerville said people who drop in on a cabin in an emergency likely wouldn't be packing fuel oil.

The Forest Service has 153 cabins in the Tongass, with two more going up this year. Many already have oil-burning stoves.

The state of Alaska owns seven public-use cabins in the Juneau area. They've all been converted to oil-burning stoves in the last several years, like the Forest Service's, because wood costs too much. Cabins have small wood-burning stoves as well, but those are for emergencies.

"People ended up burning all the wood outside in the fire pit, so we went to oil," said Paul Zahasky, park specialist for the state.

• Contact reporter Kate Golden at 523-2276 or e-mail kate.golden@juneauempire.com.