How-To……….Make Fire

Holiday Re-Post

Not much creepier than being alone deep in the wilds at night with no light, no fire.  Nor colder if you just fell in an icy creek. Killed a squirrel with a rock and don’t care for squirrel sushi?  Found some dirty looking water and need to boil it?  Need to burn the spines off a prickly pear?  Want to signal that search and rescue helicopter in the distance?

When you are lost in the wilds  the ability to make fire is priceless.  While it is true that shelter and water are usually the most important problems you need to deal with first, fire is right up there in any  top ranking of survival must-haves.  Especially in extreme cold situations.  But typically, at the onset of a lost-in-the-wilds crisis,   a  fire is merely needed for psychological uplifting but it is still important.  A fire is reassuring to humans. Makes them feel safer by providing light to pierce  the darkness and giving off comforting warmth. Fire can be a weapon as well. I have personally used flaming torches to fight off ravenous wolf packs and killer bears on many occasions. Oh wait….those were movies!  Come to think of it,  I have never been attacked by wolves or bears (a pack of marauding black-footed ferrets once, but that is another story).  But still, fire can frighten off the curious critters that might have caused mischief or worse during the night  in your camp. The main purpose of fire is to  purify water and prepare/cook/preserve food. It has an important role in signalling for help with both smoke and light, though the signal fire should be entirely separate and much larger and smokier than your camp fire. In cold climates providing warmth is an obvious plus. Insect repelling is a nice bonus of a smoky wood fire.   Fire is also useful to straighten (other than at Home Depot you are unlikely to find a 6 – 7 foot long straight pole to make a spear from)  and harden wooden weapons and other tools. Drying your clothing after a fall in the local creek or lake (been there more than once). Cauterizing wounds is another that thankfully I have yet to experience. For the long-term SHTF   ’adventure’  one can make charcoal. And a  hot fire is essential for a forge in which to create or alter metal tools. Fire has so many other uses too numerous to list in this post. Suffice it to say that we have established the fact that a fire can be a very handy thing to know how to make. If you are an experienced outdoorsman or merely ascribe to the basic principles of SurvivorManLiteBlog,  you carry fire making tools with you. You have several or all of the following:  magnesium striker, magnifying glass, steel wool, a 9-volt, prepackaged tinder, flint and steel, waterproof matches, lighters, etc. You may carry the fixin’s for a fire bow or other primitive fire making device but we will assume you have some of the previously mentioned ‘modern’ fire starters. Our fire making instructions will be based on the premise that you have at least one of these ‘modern’ fire starters. Truly primitive fire making via primitive ignition sources is something you need to get  mentored personal  instruction in. I could not start a fire with a friction technique until I had received hands-on instruction at a search and rescue training seminar. And it was still difficult. For our purposes here we will assume that you have at least a spark striker of some kind.

Fire site and construction:

Pick a safe spot for your fire.  Obviously you don’t site a fire under a dry tree.  Nor do you place it amidst the dried bushes and grass. During an already large forest fire in Arizona back in 2002,  a lost woman made a large signal fire under some trees.  The rescue helicopter’s down wash set the trees on fire and a second forest fire front was created that met with the first and formed the biggest forest fire in Arizona’s history. I do not want something like that on my conscience (nor do I need further notoriety).  Site your fire out in the open or against a cliff away from other natural fuels.  It is not necessary to enclose your fire with stones, ala the traditional marshmallow toasting campfire, and in  fact it may be impossible with the absence  of suitable loose rocks   (avoid using rocks from the creek or river as water saturated rocks have the annoying habit of exploding when heated sufficiently).    Anyway,  some fires are easier to maintain through the night without a ring of stones to deal with.  Nevertheless, it is not illogical  to build a stone fire pit as one can control the flow of air into the fire and maintain the safety of one’s fire with such.  Also it may be easier to prepare foods using the stones as a cooking surface for pots or not.  We will cover three types of fire in this post.  The first,  a fire sited without a stone lining. The second a traditional stone lined camp fire.  And the last  with  subterranean  construction. Under ground? More like,  into  the ground.

Indian or Star Fire :

The first fire site consists of a flat or scooped out circular area. The excavated dirt forming something of a slight  ridge around the fire pit. I can use some of the dirt to create a handy raised platform  close enough to the fire to park any foods I wish to keep warm while preparing the rest of my meal.  You will note the spoke like shape created by the firewood that allows me to slowly feed more fuel into the fire as the night goes on by simply pushing each piece in towards the heart of the fire.  Want to let it diminish or go out?  Just stop pushing the ‘spokes’  inward.  Easy fire to maintain and control.  Plus in the absence of a heavy axe (or just cuz I’m lazy) I don’t have to work to cut up my larger fuel logs into smaller pieces needed for a stone ringed fire.  Save your calories gang.   Do not utilize this type of fire in high wind conditions.

U Shape Campfire:

The more traditional fire pit you remember from your S’mores making Boy/Girl  Scouts days. It consists of a single or double tier of stones arranged in circular shape.  Usually they were much bigger than necessary.  A small fire is easier to acquire fuel for and easier to control in windy conditions.  Plus, I don’t like trying to cook around a large fire that an errant wind gust turns into a giant blowtorch, burning my eyebrows off!   I hate that.  So make it fairly small and with a slight adjustment.  I prefer to reshape the traditional round stone lined campfire into a U-shape.   I can control the air intake better than with a round shape and I can make a hybrid fire by slowly feeding one end of a large log into the opening of the U shape.  Best of both types of fires.

Dakota Fire Pit:

Underground fire. This is not a fire pit  to build in hard rocky ground or in low-lying or swampy soil.  It is however ideal for flat, rock-less,  featureless grasslands (also useful for low profile purposes; you know… sneaky-sneaky stuff). I personally do not ever want to see another grassland fire close up. As you can imagine, with only a light breeze, they can cover ground faster than you can. Very scary. The Dakota fire is usually smallish and mostly underground.  Clear the ground (grass) for 4-5  feet around. Dig a hole approximately 8-10 inches across and deep. Now move over about 8-12 inches and dig another hole, not as wide but just as deep. Keep in mind that ideally you want to line up the holes with the wind direction and use the up wind hole for the air supply. My experience is that the wind changes direction and your best laid plans usually go to poop. But that is the concept. Now find a pointy stick and use it to excavate a tunnel from the bottom of one hole to the bottom of the other. You don’t have to dig out the air hole all the way as deep and round a cylinder as the fire hole but angle toward the bottom of the fire hole until you can easily punch through.  Make the connecting opening a good 4-5  inches in diameter but not too big . This is the air supply for the larger hole in which you actually build your fire. Use a flat piece of bark, split log or a piece of cloth to direct (ram) the air down the intake hole. When your fire is going well then use your bark or cloth (fire damper) to reduce the air flow until the fire suits your purposes.  That’s all there is to a Dakota fire.  Requires less fuel than most primitive fire pits, is easy to control, simple to extinguish (still use plenty of water if available) and stealthy when necessary.  I carve out a niche six inches or so down from ground level in one wall of the fire hole to keep my coffee or tea warm in. I sometimes cap it with a flat rock or log.  Remember not to retrieve the cup without a glove on.  (Not that I’ve ever been stooopid enuff to burn my freakin’ bare hand and right in front of Mrs. SurvivorDan !!   Of course not, no, never……just sayin’)

The Fuel Elements of a Fire:

There are three basic elements of your fuel, all of which you will patiently assemble prior to attempting to light your fire.  Except for an emergency in which time is of the essence,  patience is the key to efficient fire making.  I have been impatient and not gathered  sufficient tinder or kindling and failed at my first fire making attempts. Wasted time and made me even more impatient. Not to mention the unsettling effect it had on my  companions who were relying on me as the wilderness survival  ’expert’.  Yep.  Unsettling.  (A fire, lean-to  and one nice rabbit stew later renewed their confidence)

Tinder:

Tinder is any materials which are easily lit, very dry and can be shredded.  Scraped bark, dry grasses, dry pine needles, dead leaves, milkweed fluff, down from cattails, cotton balls, char clothe, ooo steel wool, etc.  I like to use a combination of tinders to form a round tinder ball about the size of a smallish bird’s nest. Patiently gather your materials and form a nice bird’s nest / tinder bundle and set it aside.  Gather all the rest of your materials.  Patience.

Kindling:

Kindling is small pieces of dry wood and  dry bark.  Splinter  little twigs, dry bark, and such from the size of a match stick up to about a little finger in girth. Twist them and splinter them as they will burn more easily. Soft woods like pine tend to catch more easily than hardwoods.The trick is not to get impatient and smother the fire with too much kindling or pieces that are too large. Start really, really small and gradually build up the sizes until you are using finger thick pieces. At this stage you should simply be accumulating kindling and making separate piles of teeny, medium and  ‘large’  (pinkie finger thick) pieces. Easier to select the right sizes when you are starting your fire.

Fuel Wood:

Anything bigger than a pencil or so in thickness constitutes fuel wood.  However you don’t generally need huge logs as thick as a hogs hindquarters. Start with sticks an inch or less  in diameter and work up to 4-6 inch thick logs. If the locally available wood is pine then you will need to accumulate more as it will not burn as long as hardwood. But hey, you use what you have readily at hand. Sort the wood by sizes for ease of selection when building your fire.  Same thing applies here, don’t smother your kindling with too much too soon. Slowly add medium size sticks and bigger pieces of fuel wood until you have the size fire that you need.  And remember, you usually need a fire about half the size of the one you think you need. Preserve the fuels and your calorie burning (from fuel gathering) by using a fire of a moderate size.

Found this pile of dry split hardwood near my last campsite.  Yeah!  In my dreams…

Ignition and Combustion:

Ignite your tinder bundle with a match, lighter, magnesium striker, batteries and  steel wool, fire piston, magnifying lens, fire bow, flint and steel etc. Carefully re-shape and blow on your tinder bundle until it bursts into flame. Takes practice but once you get a feel for it you are a fire maker!  But before you do that build your fire teepee.

For the star fire  and the u shaped fire pit you should build a teepee fire (below left).  Start with very small bits of kindling and tinder and stick a few in the ground in a teepee shape. These will help form a frame for your fledgling fire teepee. Add bits of kindling to form the first inner layer of the teepee. Leave air space and a decent sized opening where you will later thrust in your burning tinder bundle. Add layers of kindling and finally the outer layers of fuel wood until you have a nice size fire teepee ready to go. As you build it continue to be mindful of providing lots of airflow.  Fires require ignition, fuel and air. Without enough spaces for  air flow, at your moment of triumph, the fire will extinguish itself. If it does then tear the teepee apart and patiently start over. With practice you can construct and ignite a camp fire in minutes. For the Dakota fire,  place your burning tinder bundle in the bottom of the fire hole and carefully add tinder and kindling until you have a cheery little fire going. Personally,  I make a teepee fire next to the fire hole and when it is burning merrily,  I thrust it into the hole, but that’s me. I was careless  once and I burned myself reaching into the hole while starting a Dakota fire.  There are as many permutations of a campfire regarding construction and ignition as you can imagine. Experiment with different methods until you find your three favorites. The layout and construction of a fire pit depends on your purposes. Are you mainly concerned with preparing water and food for your meal, do you have cooking implements or not, smoking meats, high wind conditions, drying clothes, warming up, making charcoal, signalling, need to be stealthy, cauterizing a wound, doing some emergency smithy work, providing light etc ?  The size and shape of the fire and its fire pit will vary depending upon your primary needs. Do you need a heat reflector?  You will figure it out.  The important thing is ………. you can make fire!*

Hope that’s helpful. Please comment.

*Don’t forget that you can also make a forest fire!  Use plenty of water (if available) to thoroughly extinguish your fire. Stir the ashes as you add water.   Shovel on some dirt to bury the wet ashes.   Dakota fires are the easiest to extinguish.  Add water (to both holes), stir and kick the dirt back into the holes. In a non-survival situation;  if your fire pit is stone ringed then roll the stones back where they came from.  In a pristine area don’t rationalize that you will leave your fire ring for the next fellow.  Return the site to the way it was when you found it.  Be a good steward of the wilderness.