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All of the tiny needles and small branches on a Christmas tree have a lot of surface area and dry out way faster than the actual wood inside the trunk.
It’s the solid wood inside a tree’s trunk that can take years to dry. A Christmas tree’s needles can be dry brown tinder in a few weeks.
Trees are made from long cells, sap (water) is drawn up these cells by capillary action.
In softwoods the cells are long tubes, while hardwood cells have partitions at short distances apart.
Softwood dry (or season) relatively quickly as the water can drain out more easily. Hardwood season more slowly as the water has to pass through each partition.
Christmas trees are usually a pine tree (like pinus radiata) and pines are softwood – seasoning quickly. Also pines are full of resins which burn rather well.
So, hardwood takes a few seasons to dry, which might explain the 2 years you mentioned, while softwood dry out faster which might explain the fire hazard.
And the fuel load of the small dry branches and needles mentioned in the earlier part
Even green wood burns. Otherwise forrest fires wouldn’t happen.
You just want dryer wood for a hotter, cleaner burn, however. This means more heat and less smoke.
Many are pine trees (‘cept you fancy folk with your Douglas fir), which are very oily and sappy. You don’t want to burn pine in a fireplace because it leaves an oily residue that leads to a chimney fire.
The knotty pine den craze of the 70’s led to many housefires, mostly because they had a wood burning stove in the same room not recognizing the irony.
Was a tradition of mine and the girl to celebrate the first day of spring by burning the Christmas tree we tossed out three months ago and holy God damn does that thing go up like a missile. They’re like nature’s made in China lithium battery. You could feel the flames from the other side of the yard and in five minutes, the tree was completely gone.
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