Fire

When it comes to surviving on your wits one of the hardest tasks to accomplish is making fire. Without using lighters, matches, or any other fire making handicaps, to most people, fire is hard to make. Add the difficulties of: whether, low moral, and dimming light make fire building impossible. Regardless, fire is a necessary tool to keep moral high, provide light, and boil water. Carefully planning a fire will make construction and lighting easier. Diligently preparing will also help when putting out a fire as well.

1. Preparing a Fire

Making a fire is like making a cake; without one ingredient the fire flop. To make a fire you will need three basic items: tinder, kindling, and fuel. A fire also needs oxygen to burn. Finding adequate tinder is the first step: tinder can be any small, dry, flammable material like moss, bark, fungus, dead leaves, or dry grass. Prepare tinder by powdering, nicking, or buffing the chosen material. The goal is to increase the tinder's surface area, so a spark or flame will easily catch. Here are some other great fire starters I've used: lint from the dryers lint trap, Duct Tape, and any propellant containing of 40 percent or higher alcohol proof. Kindling consists of bone dry wood or leaves; the wood should be no bigger than a number two pencil. Kindling is used to increase flame size and stabilize the fire. Fuel wood consists of sticks larger than your finger gradually working up to thick logs. A good rule for collecting fuel wood is to collect what you think you need, then collect five times as much. This allows a decent sized fire while preventing premature extinguishing. When all fire materials are prepare it’s time to build the fire.

2. Building a Fire

Depending on wood quality/type and climate will determine what shape to build your fire. Different campfire shapes consist of: log cabin, tepee, lean to, star, and trench. In windy, wide open areas a trench could be dug to hold fire; this will prevent the flame from going out. Forming small fuel wood in a log cabin shape will also provide wind resistance to ignite tinder. A tepee is a fast and easy way to ignite large amounts of wood. starting with tinder, pile kindling and small fuel wood over lit tinder in a native american style tepee shape. Continue to add fuel wood until a fire is sustained. A lean to is a great way to start a fire with wet wood. Using one large piece of fuel wood, wet or dry, place dry tinder along one side of the fuel wood. Then lean dry kindling, or small fuel wood, over the tinder resting on the fuel wood. Over time, when lit, the fuel wood will dry and slowly burn. This is also a way to keep wood burning longer. Rather than having to collect large amounts of wood, try building a star fire. By placing four long logs over smoldering embers in an “X” shape. The embers will slowly eat up the longs sustaining the fire for longer, but be cautious not to trip over protruding logs.

Don’t forget to use common sense when building a campfire, and don’t build a fire: larger than you can handle, near dry vegetation, under overhanging rock or branches, and don’t burn anything on private land without special permission. If a fire ring is not available frame your fire with large rocks or a moat of moist dirt or sand. Know that the fire is build it’s time to ignite it.

3. Lighting a Fire

There are countless ways to light a fire, here are a few typical ways: waterproof matches, paraffin blocks, flint and steel, cotton wool, char cloth, or fire sticks. In severe survival situations magnifying glass, steel wool and batteries, and the popular hand/bow drill will work as a last resort. A magnifying glass is a convex lens - like a pair of glasses - hold a convex lens extremely still, focusing on one spot on the tinder until smoke appears . This method is time consuming and only works when the sun is out. Steel wool and batteries are a relatively easy way to start a fire. By placing steel wool on the positive and negative ends of a nine volt battery, the wool will quickly light on fire. One of the more difficult way of producing a fire is by using a bow drill. A bow drill works by twisting a hard wooden dowel quickly over a softer wood plank to create embers. With the assist of a bow, a hardwood/rock bearing block, and carving a notch in the plank will increase efficiency.

Regardless what method is used, when embers are formed and smoke starts rolling don’t smother the flame and don’t blow it out. Gently light the tinder and kindling, and instead of blowing heavily, try blowing like your fogging a window. These tips and tricks should help you safely and quickly light a fire.

From preparing, to building, and lighting a fire all steps are crucially important for a successful flame. Remember fire is a tool not a toy, and can cause serious harm. Make sure to completely burn all lit wood to coals, and carefully extinguish all embers before departing from the area. If you can physically touch the coals - after slowly pouring large amounts of water, sand, or dirt over the fire - then you can be confident the fire is completely out. Remember to be considerate in the outdoors, careful with fire, and be conservation minded. After all heat is gone bury the remaining coals by covering them with wet sod, and remove extra firewood from the premises. In Boy Scouts this is called leave no trace. This insurers the next group of people will have the same experience and allows the environment to stay natural. It might sound silly, but this could be the difference between life and death. Stay tuned for next week and remember to always be prepared.

Thank you, and please leave a comment or question down below.