Well, you have to understand that saw log prices are in the toilet, that is *if* the mills are buying logs at all. Here in the PNW, maple, oak and madrone are considered trash trees, and are usually left on site after a clear cut. They burn them with the rest of the cull logs in slash piles. I know loggers in northwest Oregon that are falling Doug firs for firewood, becasue they can get more for them that way than from the mills. With a lot of loggers and millworkers and truckers out of work, firewood logs are a good way (and in some cases, the only way) to make ends meet to avoid having to flip hamburgers.
Also pulp log prices are up so a lot of people are thinning, and cutting and hauling to supply the paper mills. That is becasue dimentional lumber saw mills are in low gear or shut down, and there is not as much leftover chips and scraps from those mills to supply the paper mills. But that is low price stuff, even at these rates. As for transporting logs, it is the same as if they were loading and dropping them off at the mill. People have been buying logs for firewood almost as long as they have been hauling logs to mills. There are always cull loads that the mill rejects, and miscut lengths, and cull and trash trees at logging sites. Easy to load them up and drop them off to someone that wants them for firewood.