If you use dead wood in your fire then it is mostly carbon neutral. The wood falls from the trees, rots, releases CO2. If you burn it the same amount of CO2 is released, just a little bit faster. There is some CO2 emitted from fossil fuels in the collection and transport of the wood.
The same principle applies to plantation timber. Growing the trees accumulates CO2 from the environment. Burning them releases it. There would be some excess emissions coming from the inputs to plant and look after the trees and cutting them down, splitting and transporting etc.
It's only a problem in CO2 terms if you chop down trees to burn and don't replace them.
Particulate emissions are a different issue. Wood fire places are very bad for that. We used to only run our fire if there was a stiff breeze to blow the smoke away. Unfortunately all our neighbours would light their fires at the first excuse so we light our fire if it's cold enough.
Using the fire to save on carbon tax is pointless unless you have a source of free firewood. Buying firewood is way more expensive than any other source of heat. It will get more expensive when the fuel merchants start adding in the carbon tax on diesel for transport etc.
Wonder if people realised rewind a few thousand years ago, we didn't have the luxuries we had and still managed to survive. Rewind even more and winter chills meant a bunch of monkeys cuddle up together in a cave. We can blame the industrial sector but they are only there to supply our outlandish needs in the 21st century.
Grab a blanket, cut back on electricity use, find alternative modes of transport (those legs were made for something), recycle and then maybe that tax will be scrapped. Do we really want to leave a dead planet for our future generations to live in?
