To Build a Fire

Growing up, I was in both a scouting group and a frontiersmen re-enactment organization, and camping was the only thing I enjoyed more than G.I. Joes. It wasn’t until I became an adult and began camping with others that I realized how naïve most are to basic survival techniques, such as shelter building, trail navigation, food preparation and, possibly most importantly, fire building. The interesting thing about watching others build fires, besides the extreme incompetence, is the stubborn refusal to accept any help, especially when males are involved. Every man assumes that the knowledge of starting a fire is somehow embedded in their genes; if their ancestors could figure it out, so can they. Consequently, I’ve seen rituals involving bundles of smoldering newspaper, bottles of wasted starter fluid and smoldering logs strewn throughout the campsite (apparently in an attempt to put them out).

I can start a fire in a light rain or heavy winds with absolutely no problem. I’m not bragging, because all it takes is a basic understanding of how fire behaves, which I’m keen to share with anyone willing to listen. I’m also content to sit back and mock stubbornly desperate and futile attempts.

Tenet #1: Fire is lazy. If you are willing to do the work for it, it is content to let you. It will consume the easiest thing available that will sustain its current state. It doesn’t want to grow and doesn’t like change.

Tenet #2: Fire can’t hold its breath. It needs a constant supply of oxygen. Wood does not act as a substitute for oxygen; in fact oxygen is more important than fuel.

That’s pretty much all you need to know about fire to get one started.

The ideal diameter area in which to build a normal-sized fire is about a yard (meter), but most provided pits at modern campsites are about half that. This is because the people providing them know most people become idiots in the presence of fire and are trying to restrict the size of it as much as possible. I don’t blame them. Speaking of idiots- things that should never be discarded in a fire pit include glass, metal, plastic and rubber. Burning railroad ties is also a bad idea.

Have all your firewood gathered before starting the fire. There are three categories of wood, and you will need all three to progress a flame into a campfire. The finest materials used to get the fire started are called tinder. You don’t need much of it- just enough to fill two cupped hands. Tinder can be: a dried out bird’s nest, dried pine needles, shredded paper or a ripped up brown paper grocery sack. A ripped up weekday newspaper also works, but avoid the glossy pages printed with color ink. Do not use dried leaves; they just create smoke and tend to smother the fire. A common mistake in building a fire is using too much tinder. Its purpose is to get the fire started and not to keep it going. As long as you keep feeding tinder to a jejune fire, tinder is the only thing it will consume (refer to tenet #1). The goal is to ween it off tinder and force it to burn larger materials.

Kindling is the term used for the wood used to grow the fire. Basically, kindling is tree branches. As your fire building skills improve, you will need less and less kindling, but an armload or one dead tree branch should be more than enough. The main thing is to have a progression in size from twigs to about 2 inch diameter sticks. If a branch bends instead of snaps or is green in the middle, it is not dried, or cured. Also, I’d better point out that in some states it is illegal to use tree branches found on site at certain campgrounds. Alternatively, you can use a progression from tightly rolled up newspaper or brown paper bag to corrugated cardboard or paint stir sticks to untreated lumber or quartered logs.

The goal of building a fire is to get it to burn logs, which are called fuel. In ideal conditions, the progression from match to log takes about 5 minutes. If you’re not using dry wood, a realistic goal is more like 10-15 minutes. If you construct the tinder, kindling and fuel properly, very little work is needed once the tinder is lit, whereas if you just haphazardly chuck wood into the pit, you will spend more time than necessary fussing with it.

Please note: starter fluid is for putting on charcoal briquettes, not on campfires.

You want to provide a way for a little air to get under the tinder. I do this by placing two ½” sticks in a V shape pointing away from the wind (opposite how a weather vane works) so the wind blows inside the opening of the V and laying several small twigs across the V like a grate. Nest, I surround that small V with a much larger V of two 4” logs. Across this large V make an A by placing a wedges log across it. I recommend a wedge both because that’s an easy way of preventing it from rolling off and because it provides an easier meal for the fire than a rounded log. This wedged log is the goal of our fire building operation. Once that wedge is in flames, you should be able to keep the fire going simply by adding more logs.

The tinder goes in the area on top of the small twigs held up by the small V and inside the A of the logs. One handy cheat I use as the primary thing to light is a stick of sawdust compressed with resin or wax that you can either make or buy for cheap in any store with a camping section.

If you are using some method other than a match or lighter to start the fire, you’ll have to wait before stacking any more wood, because it’ll probably involve cupping and blowing on the tinder to get it smoking before putting it into the A frame. (Flint and steel is a technique that’s easier than it looks while using a friction bow is far more difficult than you’d imagine.) As long as you have something you can light and fit under the A-bar of the big logs to light the tinder, you can arrange the kindling before doing so. I’ve recently been using an aim-and-flame but that’s not really as good as using wood matches stored in a waterproof container. If you opt for more of a challenge in fire-starting, you’ll have to add the rest of the wood as you make sure the tinder is getting air (which isn’t particularly challenging, actually, as long as the kindling is with easy reach).

Secret #1: The fuzz stick. If your wood isn’t dry or weather conditions aren’t amenable, I highly recommend taking a few minutes to construct a fuzz stick, which acts as a transitional device between the tinder and the kindling. Get a stick about a ½” thick and a foot or so long, and cover the entire thing with a series of thin U-shaped cuts. Each U gets flared out so the stick looks fluffy. Finally, sharpen the end opposite the one the knife blade has been facing to a point and stab it through the middle of the tinder in the A frame so that it stands erect. The fire will climb the stick, first burning the flared out notches until it consumes the stick itself. This might seem like a waste of time, but it’ll save you a few matches in the event your tinder goes out before the kindling is fully lit. Making the fuzz stick for the next trip is a great pastime while sitting around the fire. You can quickly improvise a substitute by ripping a bunch of tears into a brown paper bag and then rolling it up.

Immediately after the fuzz stick is in place, the smallest twigs are placed in rows above the tinder across the triangle of the A frame. Leave space between the sticks for air to be able to pass through. Then, form the largest kindling, consisting of three thick branches or log wedges, into a tripod above them. Finally, lean medium-sized kindling against the tripod, making a teepee surrounding the outside of the A frame but not between the legs of the A.

Now all you need to do is light the tinder. You might be noticing that there are a lot more places where more wood can be added. Instead of acting on this impulse, refer to tenet #2.

Once the tinder is started (if you don’t have a match long enough to reach under the log, light something longer, like a thinly rolled piece of paper, first), you want to make sure to keep airflow underneath it as the flames raise up and into the kindling. The classic methods are to contort your head down there and blow or use a bellows. I have to credit my friend Chant for introducing me to a third option.

Secret #2: The blow tube. Take approximately two feet of ¾” copper tubing and flatten one end with a hammer, leaving a sliver for an opening. Wrap glow tape at the top of the opposite end so that you remember which end is which. Then all you do is aim the flattened end where air is needed and blow through it. Don’t be overly worried about blowing out the flame; even if you do, a couple more blows should get it started again. The flames going out is not the same as the fire going out, but if you run out of glowing embers you might be hosed.

Depending upon the dryness of the wood, you might need to add a bit more kindling before the fire is hot enough to burn the log. If it starts going out, there is no need to immediately panic, because the small grated platform for the tinder that was the first thing placed acts as emergency back-up kindling. Build the fire by adding slightly larger sizes while keeping it supplied with oxygen; resist the urge to frantically dump on a bunch more tinder. The teepee will eventually collapse and you might need to push the sticks together to prevent the fire from getting too spread out, and the blow tube can be reappropriated for this task. Once the largest kindling that acted as the main support for the teepee is burning, another log can be placed alongside the cross bar of the A frame on top of the V with space between the two logs for airflow and then two more logs can be stacked perpendicular on top of those. That’s all there is to it. Occasionally consolidating and adding logs is all you’ll have to do for the rest of the evening.

White-hot coals are ideal for cooking on, and at this point I usually start prepping food, as it’ll be about a half hour before there are enough of them to cook with.

Unless it rains, after the inaugural fire has burnt down to coals, you should be able to start a new one simply by putting some twigs on them and blowing.

Before abandoning the vicinity, be sure to first sprinkle (to avoid a cloud of smoke and ash) and then completely douse the entire fire pit area with water.