RALEIGH - A dyed-in-the-wool outdoorsman who towered 6 feet, 7 inches tall, Moreland Gueth epitomized a modern-day Paul Bunyan. He fought forest fires and tested his mettle in lumberjack competitions. Ax-throwing was one of his specialties.

At the same time, Gueth tapped into his inner Martha Stewart. He loved cooking for large groups, catering a friend's wedding and baking cakes, any kind. Then he decorated them.

Charles Moreland Gueth (pronounced to rhyme with "teeth") died unexpectedly a few months ago of heart failure. He was 51.

Moreland Gueth was born in High Point in 1956, the second of two children. During a high school job fair, he got interested in forestry. After graduation, he enrolled in N.C. State University's forestry school.

After he completed his degree in 1981, he went to work for the state Division of Forest Resources, helping farmers plan which trees to cut and which to replant and how to care for the rest.

Gueth was a quiet environmentalist who aired his views through his work. "Most of nature's resources are not renewable," said his mother, LeIla Smith Gueth. "He felt trees were."

At annual lumberjack competitions, he excelled at log chopping, in which lumberjacks see who can halve a log the fastest, and two-man crosscut sawing, in which two guys grab hold of a crosscut saw -- a saw with a handle on each end -- and saw through a log as speedily as they can.

Then there was ax-throwing, which is not for the squeamish: Participants fling a double-bladed ax toward a target, trying to nail the bull's-eye.

Blazes and cookers

Through the forest service, Gueth trained as a firefighter. When blazes broke out, he battled them, traveling to Alaska and Oregon, Washington state and Montana.

More recently, he served as a safety officer, heading to burn sites to help coordinate the plan of attack and make sure his colleagues fighting the fire complied with regulations -- taking mandatory breaks, never venturing out alone, controlling the blaze according to plan.

Were he still alive, Gueth undoubtedly would have been assigned to the wildfire now crackling in the eastern part of the state, said his friend Bob Houseman, who reminisced about Gueth on his way to take part in firefighting.

"He liked the adventure and excitement and the sense of accomplishment when you suppress one," Houseman said.

Fire extinguished, Gueth turned his attention to the kitchen.

Nancy Boyer, whom Gueth referred to as his "sweetheart," met him at a wedding of mutual friends where he was chef de cuisine.

He liked to cook chicken and pig in one of a few wide-bodied cookers he owned. He would cook for friends or for church, and he would provide dessert, too.

On his homemade cakes, he piped icing and created intricate designs with the skill of a professional.

"This is a big guy, and he'd cut down trees, fight fires and bake cakes," Houseman said. "He was quite a personality."

In his down time, he couldn't stay away from trees. Skilled with a chain saw, Gueth would prune trees, fell them for friends, climb them with metal spurs that hooked to the inside of his boots. Tree-climbing is no child's play when you're 20 feet off the ground, wielding a chain saw.

A sturdy legacy

He also engaged with wood in the context of Habitat for Humanity. Active in Johnston County, Gueth was on the construction committee for Habitat.

A three-bedroom home was the standard blueprint, but the needs of larger families spurred Gueth to help draw up plans for a four-bedroom home.

The new design will be called the Moreland, and volunteers will break ground in Smithfield on the first one in July or August.

Gueth and Boyer served as site supervisors at a Benson home, but Gueth died right before the family was scheduled to move in.

An oak tree will be planted in the yard come fall.

"He was a big, strapping man, and an oak tree is a big, strong tree," Boyer said. "And it lasts forever."

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Moreland Gueth is survived by his mother, two children, one grandchild and his sweetheart, Nancy Boyer.