TIVERTON

For more than 30 years, Jim Roies has been in the lumber business.

After his uncle passed away in 1982, he changed the name of the business –– then named after the Durfees –– to Jim Roies and Son Logging Company and “kept going.”

“My father was a farmer, he died in ’79,” Roies, a lifelong Tiverton resident, said. “We ended up going from farming to wooding, it all connects; it’s all agricultural anyway.”

Though Roies, who has a harvesting license, will not divulge where he cuts the deadwood for fear of competitors taking over his space, he explained the state deems an area as “devastated” due to environmental problems and then puts the area out to bid, where contractors can submit bids to cut wood on the property. In this case, the area went out to bid because of an infestation of gypsy moths followed by a drought that killed off many oak trees.

“We’re basically doing a salvage cut,” he said.

Roies said he normally caters to homeowners –– he has 30 regular customers who consider him their “wood guy” –– but did cut cords for Providence’s WaterFire event for five years.

“There’s no problem selling wood, the problem is getting wood,” he said. “Supply and demand.”

Roies’s only other employee is his son, Justin — who is finishing his last semester at the University of New Hampshire to obtain a foresting degree — though sometimes Justin’s friends come by to help. Their normal work day lasts from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., but Roies said he expects at least a 25 percent increase in workload this coming season.

“Fuel’s so high everyone’s trying to diversify, trying to save a buck,” he said. “The thing is fuel affects everybody, including the woodcutters, because we’ve got to buy fuel. Everything you touch, it’s more money than it used to be.”

But developers are hurting businesses like Roies’. He said all the bigger woodlands are going straight to developers.

“Wood’s getting tough, you’ve got to go farther to get it because not everybody wants to cut their trees,” he said.

cthompson@projo.com