Lighting the fire is only half the battle. The way you '' build '' a fire - that is, how you arrange the wood - can affect how long the fire can stay on and how much heat will be emitted. This article will give you an overview of how to prepare and light a fire in any situation.
Steps
Method 1 of 2: Part 1: Get What You Need
Step 1. Get something to light the fire with
The obvious choice would be a lighter or a pack of matches, but if you don't have them within reach, try one of these ideas:
- Light a fire with a magnifying glass
- Light your wet matches by removing a flashlight, inserting them into the end where the bulb would be and keeping the flashlight pointed towards the sun.
- Get a flint. Generally, it is easier to find them on the banks of streams. Scratch the stones with a knife until you find one that produces sparks.
- You can turn dry branches and pieces of bark into shavings or dust, which work great as bait (i.e. the material that burns easily and is used in the initial phase of starting the fire) with a knife.
- You can turn dry branches and pieces of bark into shavings or dust, which work great as bait (i.e. the material that burns easily and is used in the initial phase of starting the fire) with a knife.
Step 2. Get a bait
The bait ignites with the sparks from the ignition source and serves to extend the fire to small wood or ignition fuel. If the wood is soggy or damp, the bait must burn long enough to dry the ignition fuel.
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Other bait materials include:
- Dry grass and plants
- Wax
- Gauze or cotton balls
- Birch bark
- Charcloth (obtained by subjecting cotton clothes, closed in a container, to the heat of the fire)
- Dry moss
- Paper
- Pine cones and pitch-pine
- Dry needles of coniferous trees
- Fuzz stick (it is a stick of fresh barked wood on which, with a knife, shavings are obtained that must be kept attached and which can be easily ignited)
- Magnesium flintlock or fire starter
Build a Fire Step 3 Step 3. Collect small wood or cardboard
The small wood must have a fairly large surface / volume ratio (diameter between about 0.5 and 1.5 cm) and a greater combustible mass of the bait, so that it can be ignited easily, can produce flames and heat concentrated in a manner prolonged over time and can therefore allow the ignition of the main fuel.
- Good materials are: dry twigs and bits of wood, cardboard, logs cut into smaller pieces or fuzz sticks.
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If you need to cut small logs or branches into smaller pieces to make small wood, try these methods:
- Place the piece of wood you want to cut parallel to the hatchet blade, with the tip of the piece in contact with the blade. Keep both hands away from the blade: one on the hatchet handle and the other at the base of the piece of wood. Keeping the piece of wood in contact with the ax blade at the point where you want to cut it, move the log and accept it together until it hits the support base. When the hatchet enters the piece of wood and cuts it, rotate it to completely separate the two pieces of the log.
- To cut through smaller stumps or branches, hold the piece of wood vertically by driving it into the ground or using your feet, then take a rock a little larger than your fist and hit the end of the log or stick until it clicks. forms a crack. Spread the crack with your fingers to divide the piece of wood into smaller pieces.
Step 4. Collect large branches, small logs or other sources of more consistent combustible material
Some examples of good combustible materials include dry wood between 2.5 and 12.5 cm thick, wrapped or compacted dry hay or grass, peat, dried animal droppings, and charcoal. Collect more fuel than you plan to use, especially if you plan on sleeping by the fire.
- Wet material, grass or green wood can be used as fuel, but only once the fire is already alive enough, as it will burn slower than dry fuel.
- Softwood trees (coniferous, evergreen) have leaves in the form of needles. These burn quickly and develop a lot of heat, and also contain flammable resins that develop even more heat and help start the fire. For this reason, they are also often used as small wood, as they are easier to ignite than hardwood (angiosperms). It is easy to tell when wood contains resin because it crackles and pops during combustion.
- Hardwood trees have flat, broad leaves and don't catch fire as easily as softwoods. However, once hardwood has been ignited, it burns for a longer period of time and develops more heat. To cut hardwood into smaller pieces it is often necessary to exploit the cracks already naturally present in the wood or use tools such as chainsaws or metal wedges and hammers.
- You can also use rolled up newspaper, dipped in water and detergent and dried as the primary fuel.
Method 2 of 2: Part 2: Fix the Fuel and Light the Fire
Step 1. Clear a circular area of 1.2 meters in diameter of stones and grass
Create a circle with rocks or dig a fire pit about ten centimeters using a garden shovel or shovel. The circle of stones will serve to isolate the base of the fire. By building a small wall with branches or rocks it is possible to reflect the radiation (and therefore the heat), which is particularly useful if you plan to stay only on one side of the fire (as otherwise the heat emitted in the other directions is wasted).
If the ground is wet or covered with snow, build a platform using green branches and cover it with a layer of earth or stones
Step 2. Place small wood and ignition fuel in your circle or pit, not overly compacted
The fuel must be compact enough to catch fire and extend combustion to the rest of the material, but also separate enough to allow good air circulation.
- Put the bait on the ignition fuel cell. Light the fire with your ignition source and gradually add more ignition fuel.
- Slowly blow on the igniting fire to develop heat and intensity of combustion.
Step 3. Add firewood, starting with the smaller pieces and continuing with the larger ones
The arrangement you choose will determine the duration of the fire, the burning rate and how much your wood will suffice.
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Build a tepee. Arrange the bait and some small pieces of wood to form a cone, then light it in the center of the base. The outer sticks will fall independently inwards and feed the fire. This is the most effective of all configurations.
- Since the hottest point of the flame is at the top (where oxygen participates in the combustion by generating carbon dioxide), the heat will be more intense at the top of the tepee, so if a stick is thicker at one end, be sure to place it. so that the thicker end is at the apex of the cone.
- With this tepee configuration even green or damp wood will burn well. However, since quite intense heat develops with this form, the fire will consume the wood quite quickly.
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Create a bunk fire. Arrange the wood by placing two pieces, parallel to each other, at a time, alternating the direction to form 4 walls arranged in a square. Leave enough space to place a tepee fire in the center and thus obtain a "lumberjack" fire, and make sure that the air can circulate easily through the sticks of the outer walls.
- With this configuration you will get a chimney effect that will suck the air near the base and make it come out of the top with an intense flame. If it seems to you that the fire is not receiving enough oxygen, dig small holes under the walls to facilitate air circulation, or blow the fire to reach the optimal combustion temperature.
- This setup is best for cooking food, as the square shape makes the heat spread evenly. You can put the food directly over the fire for a while if you use large enough green wooden sticks on top of the tepee and walls.
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Build a pyramid. Place two fairly large logs or sticks on the ground, so that they are parallel to each other, then place a whole layer of smaller sticks or logs perpendicularly on top of the two main ones.
- Add another 3 or 4 layers of sticks, changing the direction each time and using smaller sticks to gradually shrink towards the top.
- Set fire to the top of the pyramid and the flame will spread autonomously towards the base.
- Create a hut fire. Drive a green branch into the ground with an inclination of 30 ° and with the tip pointing in the direction of the wind. Put the bait under it and place small sticks of wood on the main branch. Light the bait and add more small wood when necessary.
- Dig a small cross pit. Create a cross-shaped groove in the soil that is 30 cm in diameter and 7.5 cm deep. Place a large pile of bait in the middle, then build a pyramid out of small wood directly above the pile of bait. The groove will allow air to pass through the pyramid and feed the fire. This setup is particularly useful when the wind often changes direction.
- Create a star. Take some sticks and lay them on the ground around one point so that they touch at one end. With this configuration, you can push the wood inwards to increase the heat and pull it outwards to decrease it. This type of fire is particularly useful if you need to reduce fuel consumption.
Step 4. Finished
Advice
- Make sure all fuel is dry, otherwise the fire will produce twice as much smoke as it normally would.
- To heat as much as possible, light your fire near a boulder or rock face so that the radiation is reflected. This will double the heat emitted in your direction by the fire and keep you warm.
- To avoid accidentally lighting a second fire, protect the logs and sticks that are near the fire from sparks and embers by placing them separately from each other, instead of stacking them.
- If you are in an emergency situation, you can have the embers stay lit overnight or for a longer time so that you can rekindle the fire at a later time. Put the embers together and cover them with ash. Powdered ash will significantly limit the passage of oxygen and retain heat well. The embers will remain at a high temperature and will burn slowly during the night.
- Collect dry sticks and twigs from the ground when you are looking for firewood. The still living branches of the trees have too much moisture inside them, and in any case detaching green branches and cutting down live shrubs to collect firewood show little respect and little intelligence in managing the environment.
Warnings
- Always keep a couple of buckets full of water at hand before lighting a fire. That way, if you lose control of the fire, you'll have something ready to put it out with. If you are in an area where there is not much water, fill the buckets with earth or sand. Prepare more buckets if you need to light larger fires.
- Do not move firewood from one area to another. You could transport pest alien species, including insects and larvae, along with the wood, to a new area. If wood has been brought from another area, it must be burned all and not left intact in the new environment.
- Avoid starting the fire too close to curtains or sleeping areas.
- Avoid using stones collected near or in the bed of water courses to create the outer circle of your fire. Rocks can store water in their pores and, if heated quickly, they can crack and burst.
- If you stay in a campsite or other area for more than one or two days, set aside the fuel in a dry and covered area, as a precaution in case of rain.
- Never light a fire directly under a tree or under branches or branches that are too low.
- If you need to move or arrange the fuel inside the fire and you do not have a suitable metal tool, dip the end of a fairly large stick in a bucket of water (or take a green branch) and use it as a poker to move the wood. and the embers. Sometimes, moving or turning the wood logs can help control or greatly revive the fire.
- Use small twigs without bark as an intermediate fuel between the bait and the small wood.
- Before starting the fire, make sure you are allowed to do so. Most campsites and some local administrations may only allow the use of gas or liquid fuel fires, or may not allow them at all, depending on the temperature and humidity of the day. Fires are sometimes not allowed during the day.
- Never leave a fire burning without someone controlling it. If you have to leave, remove each glowing log from the others and separate the embers so that they cool, then wet the fire area with water to put them out and extinguish them. An uncontrolled fire could spread and inadvertently trigger a disastrous forest fire.
- Cooking over a campfire is fun, but very inefficient. A camping stove allows you to control the flow of air and cooks food more efficiently.
- If you intend to reuse a fire after a short time, use the earth to put out the fire, instead of water. The water would make the wood and the entire fire area moist and difficult to reignite, even after fairly long periods of time.
- You can weaken the fire or let it go out to conserve the fuel and use it later by simply separating each log or branch from the others and from the embers.
- Make sure you have enough fuel set aside for your fire. Nobody would like to wake up at 3 in the morning from the cold and realize that the fire has gone out. Once you think you have collected enough wood, go back and collect at least 3 more times as much!
