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Campfire Basics
By Bud Journey
YES, of course you know how to build a campfire. Everybody
knows how to build a campfire. That said, may I timidly offer
some suggestions that could facilitate things a bit for you?
During a lifetime in the outdoors, I've learned from some of the
best.
In places where they are legal, campfires can serve as any
thing from warm friends that are centers of social gatherings to
life-saving measures, during times of potential hypothermia.
Knowing how to build one can be a convenience or a necessity.
The key to getting a fire going quickly is in selecting the
right tinder. Naturally, if you have paper, that's good tin
der. Other good natural tinder is dry moss (wet moss is terri
ble); a thin layer of leaves (with enough open spaces to allow
air through); very small, dry twigs (a couple of millimeters in
diameter); dried pitch nodules; a handful of shavings from a
dead, standing tree; the paper-like dried outer layer of birch
bark; and dead brown needles from any type of conifer tree.
In my opinion, the last is the best. It will get a fire
started quicker than anything else I've found, including pitch
(which is also very good). I once stared a warming fire during
a hunts trip in the British Columbian Rockies when it was rain
ing, and there were six inches of wet snow on the ground. All
the materials I used were wet, and I had no paper. My tinder
for that fire was dead fir needles. Dead pine needles would
have worked equally well.
After you have found the tinder, the next thing to look for are
small dead limbs - the drier the better. A good place to find
such limbs is low on the trunk of a live tree or the interior of
a dense shrub, where they are protected from moisture. Break
off the small ends of these twigs and place them immediately
above the tinder, then use the slightly larger butts for the
next layer of campfire material.
Next, look for slightly larger firewood that is suspended off
the ground, such as limbs that are still attached to dead logs.
Other limbs and small trees that are not lying directly on the
ground also make good firewood.
Don't bother with wood that is in contact with the ground or
wood that has begun to rot. They make poor burning material.
Preparing the Materials For a Fire- I seldom use an axe to cut
firewood. It's easier and quicker to break the large pieces over
a log or a rock. Gloves come in handy to protect your hands from
vibration. The smaller twigs are easily broken up by hand.
It pays to break your firewood into relatively small pieces,
not more than two feet in length. It is wasteful and unneces
sary to make huge, roaring campfires. Small ones will suffice
nicely for both warming and cooking.
Rock fire rings can leave long-lasting scars on the land and
are unnecessary. If I'm not using an established campfire
site, I place one or two flat rocks next to my fire bed to set
things on. When I'm done, I put the rocks back where I found
them and eradicate the fire bed, returning it to its original
appearance.
The area around the fire bed should be scraped down to mineral
soil to reduce the danger of igniting nearby materials. More
often than not, in a forested environment, this means you will
be building a fire on damp soil. Damp soil is difficult to
build a fire on for two reasons: 1) The dampness tends to reduce
the temperature, which inhibits the flames ability to grow; and
1) as the fire heats up, the water in the soil begins to steam,
which will also cool the fire - or put it out altogether.
To overcome the damp soil problem, put a layer of insulation
between the ground and the fire. Cardboard from a food package,
a paper bag, or several layers of paper towels, or some other
combustible material that will last long enough to let the fire
mature before burning up is all you need. If you have no man-
made material to use for this purpose, a tight layer of small,
dry limbs will do.
Building the Fire - This is the part where you Boy Scouts will
differ with me. The Boy Scout method works fine. This is an
alternative.
Set two pieces of wood about four to six inches in diameter
about six to eight inches apart. Green ones last longer, but
dry ones work fine. Put the layer of insulation next to the
ground. The tinder goes between the two pieces of wood, then
the layer of very fine twigs goes across the top, followed by
another layer of slightly larger twigs. Start the fire now, by
touching off the tinder. Don't add any more wood until the
largest of the twigs are well ignited. Then slowly add slightly
larger pieces of broken limbs. When this third layer of fuel is
well ignited, the fire will continue to burn well even if the
insulation next to the ground is destroyed.
It's important to remember during these early stages to layer
your combustibles carefully. The pieces of firewood should be
far enough apart to allow oxygen to the flames, but they must be
close enough together to maintain enough heat to keep the fire
going.
After building a few fires and studying them, you will get a
feel for the optimum spacing. This is important, especially in
cold and/or wet weather.
You can start cooking on a campfire as soon as the third layer
of wood is burning strongly. This is a good time to start
boiling water. Vigorous flames create a lot of heat, and it's
easy to burn food over them. I like to pile a pretty good stack
of medium-sized branches (about an inch to two inches in diame
ter) on the fire and let them burn down to a good bed of hot
coals before I put the skillet over them.
Once the cooking is done, and the campfire turns into a cozy
spot for socializing or reflecting on the aesthetics of the out
doors, larger, slower burning pieces of wood work fine. By
that time the hot bed of coals has sealed off the steam from the
soil and created enough heat to keep even damp and rotten logs
going. Again, frugal selection of proper firewood will almost
always provide all you need from a campfire. I seldom use wood
larger than six inches in diameter and eighteen inches long.
There is nothing quite like a campfire in the great outdoors.
It can save your life, or it can just keep you company. Either
way, it is a useful tool. If you follow these suggestions, you
will be able to start and maintain a campfire under almost any
kind of weather condition; you won't exhaust available firewood
supplies; and you won't scar the land.
AMERICAN SURVIVAL GUIDE/NOVEMBER 1991