Fires

Three Basic Types of Wood Material

  • Tinder – Base foundation of any fire. It is made of lightweight materials that are capable of burning quickly and igniting heavier materials. Kindling is best made of a mixture of twigs, tiny sticks, slivers of shaved wood, dried leaves, or paper, birch bark, dried grass, and dried pine needles.
  • Kindling – Used to hold your fire structure together and light even larger pieces of wood. Properly aligning sticks will allow oxygen into your fire. Sticks used should be 1-2 inches in diameter, and broken to fit inside the fire pit. It is important that sticks are dry and never taken from living, upright trees.
  • Fuel – Chunks of wood will be added to the fire last. Chunks should be dry and no more than 3 feet in length. Large chunks of wood should always be placed inside the fire ring or pit.

Types of Fires

  • Tepee Fire – Good for quick cooking since the heat is concentrated in one spot. Lay the fuel over your kindling like a tepee.
  • Crisscross Fire – Good for a long lasting fire with a lot of coals. Excellent for a campfire. Lay the fuel over the kindling in a crisscross pattern.

Building a Fire

  1. Gather Materials – Kindling, sticks, and large pieces of wood.
  2. Clear an area of at least three feet from all sides of the fire, so as not to ignite small sticks, leaves or clothing. Line this outside area with a ring of stones and large rocks.
  3. Put two handfuls of kindling into a small pile. You can compact the pile into one, softball-sized ball. The ball should be placed in the center of the fire pit or fire ring.
  4. Using your small sticks of kindling, build a small tepee around the kindling ball. Align your sticks at a 45-degree angle to the ground, making certain to leave some gaps in the tepee to allow oxygen to circulate inside the tepee.
  5. Using your medium sized sticks, form a cabin styled structure around your tepee. Do this by placing 2 sticks on the ground outside the tepee, parallel to each other. Form a square by adding another 2 sticks. Repeat, until your cabin structure is 5-6 layers high. Note: Make sure the ends of your cabin overlap, so that your structure stays in place, and will continue to ignite larger pieces of wood.
  6. Add the larger pieces of wood. Place several nice sized pieces of wood on two sides of the cabin you have just built. Now, rest two or three tiny branches or sticks on top of your cabin that touch both the cabin foundation and the large chunks of wood you have just added. Be careful not to add to many sticks to the top of the cabin or air will not be able to circulate, and your fire will die out on its own.
  7. Light your fire. Light a match and place it in between one of the gaps of your tepee or on the bottom of your cabin. If your fire ignites correctly, it should begin burning the kindling first, spread to your cabin within a few moments, and then, ignite the larger pieces of wood, as well. You can encourage "wet fires" or hard to light fires by adding a few more pieces of kindling and sticks to the fire as it continues the ignition process. Blowing gently around the base of the fire will also help to get past the kindling stage.
  8. Have a bucket of water, shovel and a fire extinguisher nearby and ready to put out a fire.

What To Do if it Rains

It's not impossible to build a fire during a rainstorm. The easiest way to accomplish this is to find an area that is at least semi-protected from moisture and downfalls. Many camping areas provide partially enclosed fire pits. Nonflammable tarps also work well. When lighting a fire during a rainstorm, you'll more than likely need a chemical fire starter of some sort.

Winter Camp Fires

Winter fires are easier to build and control than one may think. To build a winter fire, begin by digging a fire pit. If the ground is too hard, clear slow away from a circular area and lay down a fire ring or fire tray. Use the steps above to build a fire, as usual.

Start a Fire Without Matches

  1. Gather a variety of tinder - wood shavings, dried grass, lint, and even small twigs - before you start. No matter what method you choose for making a fire, you will always need to start with tinder. Ball the tinder up loosely to allow plenty of air flow, and shape it into a birds nest. Have plenty of bigger sticks to add once the fire starts.
  2. Use a little magnesium and flint block: Scrape a pile of magnesium shavings on your tinder and strike a spark off the flint. The magnesium will ignite and hopefully start flame in your tinder. Once it begins to smoke, hold the tinder in your hands to allow oxygen in through the bottom and blow gently from underneath.
  3. Use a magnifying glass on a sunny day: Angle the magnifying glass in the sun over the tinder so that the focal point is directly on the pile. Once it begins to smoke you can encourage the flame by blowing gently on the tinder from the bottom. Broken glass, bottles or eyeglasses can also work, if their focal point is bright enough.
  4. Use a 6-volt battery and steel wool: Tear the wool into a loose mass and touch it to both charges on the battery. Doing so will connect the circuit and cause a spark, and cause the steel wool to glow. Once it's hot enough, you can place it on the tinder until it catches.
  5. Use bullets: Remove a bullet from its cartridge and pour half the powder on your tinder. Put the half-empty cartridge back in the gun (without a bullet), and fire it at the tinder. Be certain that your tinder is at the base of a tree or in an enclosed area because the gunfire will likely blow the tinder away and might put out the same flame it creates.
  6. Use Friction: Place the point of a straight stick into a groove in a piece of bark or flat wood. Ideally, both of these pieces contain no sap or moisture. Rub the stick vigorously between your hands, while the point creates friction against the other piece of wood. Eventually the wood will heat until it creates a small ember which you can drop in the tinder nest.

Tips & Warnings

  • Use old-fashioned steel wool - not the new stainless steel wool pads - for the 6-volt battery-steel wool method.
  • Many other methods also exist. Chemicals (potassium permanganate and glycerin), car or airplane batteries and thin strips of metal, road flares, or any source of AC power can be used to start fires.

Start a Fire with Friction

Friction based fire making is not for the faint of heart. It’s probably the most difficult of all the non-match based methods. There are different techniques you can use to make a fire with friction, but the most important aspect is the type of wood you use for the fireboard and spindle.

The spindle is the stick you’ll use to spin in order to create the friction between it and the fireboard. If you create enough friction between the spindle and the fireboard, you can create an ember that can be used to create a fire. Cottonwood, juniper, aspen, willow, cedar, cypress, and walnut make the best fireboard and spindle sets.

Before you can use wood to start a friction-based fire, the wood must be bone dry. If the wood isn’t dry, you’ll have to dry it out first.

The Hand Drill

The hand drill method is the most primitive, the most primal, and the most difficult to do All you need is wood, tireless hands, and some gritty determination.

  1. Build a tinder nest. Your tinder nest will be used to create the flame you get from the spark you’re about to create. Make a tinder nest out of anything that catches fire easily, like dry grass, leaves, and bark.
  2. Make your notch. Cut a v-shaped notch into your fireboard and make a small depression adjacent to it.
  3. Place bark underneath the notch. The bark will be used to catch an ember from the friction between the spindle and fireboard.
  4. Start spinning. Place the spindle into the depression on your fireboard. Your spindle should be about 2 feet long for this to work properly. Maintain pressure on the board and start to roll the spindle between your hands, running them quickly down the spindle. Keep doing this until an ember is formed on the fireboard.
  5. Start a fire! Once you see a glowing ember, tap the fire board to drop you ember onto the piece of bark. Transfer the bark to your nest of tinder. Gently blow on it to start your flame.

Fire Plough

  1. Prepare your fireboard. Cut a groove in the fireboard. This will be your track for the spindle.
  2. Rub! Take the tip of your spindle and place it in the groove of your fireboard. Start rubbing the tip of the spindle up and down the groove.
  3. Start a fire. Have your tinder nest at the end of the fireboard, so that you’ll plow embers into as you’re rubbing. Once you catch one, blow the nest gently and get that fire going.

Bow Drill

The bow drill is probably the most effective friction based method to use because it’s easier to maintain the speed and pressure you need to create enough friction to start a fire. In addition to the spindle and fireboard, you’ll also need a socket and a bow.

  1. Get a socket The socket is used to put pressure on the other end of the spindle as you’re rotating it with the bow. The socket can be a stone or another piece of wood. If you use another piece of wood, try to find a harder piece than what you’re using for the spindle. Wood with sap and oil are good as it creates a lubricant between the spindle and the socket.
  2. Make your bow. The bow should be about as long as your arm. Use a flexible piece of wood that has a slight curve. The string of the bow can be anything. A shoelace, rope, or strip of rawhide works great. Just find something that won’t break. String up your bow and you’re ready to go.
  3. Prepare the fireboard. Cut a v-shaped notch and create a depression adjacent to it in the fireboard. Underneath the notch, place your tinder.
  4. String up the spindle. Catch the spindle in a loop of the bowstring. Place one end of the spindle in the fireboard and apply pressure on the other end with your socket.
  5. Start sawing. Using your bow, start sawing back and forth. You’ve basically created a rudimentary mechanical drill. The spindle should be rotating quickly. Keep sawing until you create an ember.
  6. Make you fire. Drop the ember into the tinder nest and blow on it gently. You got yourself a fire.

Flint and Steel

This is an old standby. It’s always a good idea to carry around a good flint and steel set with you on a camping trip. Matches can get wet and be become pretty much useless, but you can still get a spark from putting steel to a good piece of flint.

If you’re caught without a flint and steel set, you can always improvise by using quartzite and the steel blade of your pocketknife. You’ll also need char. Char is cloth that has been turned into charcoal. Char catches a spark and keeps it smoldering without bursting into flames. If you don’t’ have char, a piece of fungus or birch will do.

  1. Grip the rock and char cloth. Take hold of the piece of rock between your thumb and forefinger. Make sure an edge is hanging out about 2 or 3 inches. Grasp the char between your thumb and the flint.
  2. Strike! Grasp the back of the steel striker or use the back of your knife blade. Strike the steel against the flint several times. Sparks from the steel will fly off and land on the char cloth, causing a glow.
  3. Start a fire. Fold up your char cloth into the tinder nest and gently blow on it to start a flame.

Lens Based Methods

Using a lens to start a fire is an easy matchless method. Any boy who has melted green plastic army men with a magnifying glass will know how to do this. If you have by chance never melted green plastic army men, here’s how to do it.

Traditional Lenses

To create a fire, all you need is some sort of lens in order to focus sunlight on a specific spot. A magnifying glass, eyeglasses, or binocular lenses all work. If you add some water to the lens, you can intensify the beam. Angle the lens towards the sun in order to focus the beam into as small an area as possible. Put your tinder nest under this spot and you’ll soon have yourself a fire.

The only drawback to the lens based method is that it only works when you have sun. So if it’s night time or overcast, you won’t have any luck.

In addition to the typical lens method, there are three odd but effective lens based methods to start a fire as well.

Balloons

By filling a balloon with water, you can transform this ordinary object into fire creating lenses.

Fill the balloon with water and tie off the end. You’ll want to make it as spherical as possible. Don’t make the inflated balloon too big or it will distort the sunlight’s focal point. Squeeze the balloon to find a shape that gives you a sharp circle of light.

Balloons both have a shorter focal length than an ordinary lens. Hold them 1 to 2 inches from your tinder.

Fire from ice

Fire from ice isn’t just some dumb cliché used for high school prom themes. You can actually make fire from a piece of ice. All you need to do is form the ice into a lens shape and then use it as you would when starting a fire with any other lens. This method can be particularly handy for wintertime camping.

  1. Get clear water. For this to work, the ice must be clear. If it’s cloudy or has other impurities, it’s not going to work. The best way to get a clear ice block is to fill up a bowl, cup, or a container made out of foil with clear lake or pond water or melted snow. Let it freeze until it forms ice. Your block should be about 2 inches thick for this to work.
  2. Form your lens. Use your knife to shape the ice into a lens. Remember a lens shape is thicker in the middle and narrower near the edges.
  3. Polish your lens. After you get the rough shape of a lens, finish the shaping of it by polishing it with your hands. The heat from your hands will melt the ice enough so you get a nice smooth surface.
  4. Start a fire. Angle your ice lens towards the sun just as you would any other lens. Focus the light on your tinder nest and watch as you make a once stupid cliché come to life.