system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why won't a stack of office paper burn like a hardwood log does in the fire pit?

Built a fire in a fire pit the other day. 

Puta a few hundred pages of office copier paper in the bottom along with the twigs and bigger branches. Also put a few logs in. 

The wood burnt normally but I had to keep stoking the paper pile to get it burnt.

Is it just that a stack of paper doesn't have oxygen in it compared with a hard wood log?
gpt
Basically, carbon ash is a really good insulator and oxygen barrier. The outside of the paper stack will burn, but the core can't get any oxygen underneath the ash, and is fairly well thermally insulated until you poke it with a stick.