Making Fire

Making fire.

Todays topic is as the title says making fire .
Man has been making fire since he was living in caves so if they could make it way back then , then we can do it nowadays.
Before we start to build a fire we need to decide how to make the fire ignite. There are many ways to do this from a simple use of a candle ( you light the candle with a match NEVER try to light a fire with a match as you just end up wasting them! ) another way ( my favorite one ) is the flint and steel. The rubbing 2 sticks together has yet to work as far as I know but I can say that making a fire bow really works! Even if you have a broken lighter as long as its sparking it can be used. Whichever one you decide to use make sure using it is second nature to you. I recommend that you learn more then 3 different ways to make fire and master each of them.
First items needed are the following: a means of making fire ( something like a BIC lighter to a flint and steel ) tinder (a birds nest works really well if you can find one ,but the shape is what your tinder should be looking like.), kinderling ,medium size sticks then larger sized sticks finishing up at logs.
Make sure you have a good sized pile of each BEFORE you start to make any type of fire.
All wood used to make fire MUST be dry!
If you have no dry wood to use then using your knife shave the wood making curls into the middle of the stick this is called making a fire stick. This will catch fire a lot easier even if damp.
Tinder can be almost anything. Dry grass, paper, cotton wool from your first aid kit , lint from your pocket, the list is almost endless.
Kinderling is very small sticks ( twigs ) shaved if necessary into the middle where the wood is driest.
Once you have a good amount of the burnable needed to make and sustain a fire you need to pick a suitable place to make a fire.
Wet ground wont help the fire!
Is possible set the fire up against something that wont burn but will reflect the heat from the fire back towards you like a stone wall or a pile of logs if they are approx 24” away from the fire. If you make a reflector it will also double as a windbreak and a way to dry damp/wet logs.
Anyway place tinder on the ground and fluff up the tinder ruffing up the edges so they will catch the sparks or fire more easy.
Next make a small wigwam out of kinderling around the tinder DO NOT SMOTHER the tinder with too much kinderling as the tinder needs air to make the fire grow.
Now using whatever means you have … be it a BIC lighter to a flint and steel light the tinder … BUT make sure all the rest of the wood is ready and close to hand …. Now that the fire has caught the kinderling … usually you can hear it crackerling add the next layer of wood and SLOWLY make the fire bigger until you are adding the larger sized pieces of wood.
Once you have the fire burning at the size you want it is very easy to run out of the correct sized pieces of wood so to help with this … try these 2 methods out.
On finding several large logs that cannot be cut put a end of each log into the fire you can do this to have upto 4 ends in the fire at any one time … if the fire looks like it is burning to fast pull out each log by like 6” this will slow the burn rate down … and if the fire looks like it will go out push these logs in more …. This way you can control the fire just by moving the logs into or out of the fire by only moving them a maximum of 6”.
The other method is placing the large log directly into the fire so the fire is burning the middle section of the log thus basically cutting the log into a more useable size. Once it burns thru remove one section and repeat if necessary.
This is of course a very brief outline on making fire if you wish to know more feel free to contact us and im sure we could arrange a demo so you can see this being done in person.

Please feel free to join this blog and add more to the list to help each other out.