When it's cold, there is nothing as welcoming as a nice crackling fire. I've been known to cozy on up to our wood stove many a chilly damp night.
Having a fire is a basic skill that human's have used since the beginning of time and it can literally save your life. But, if you've never built and maintained a fire before, it can be a little bit harder than you'd think, especially if you use the wrong fuel or techniques. Hello, all smoke, sting my eyes till I'm crying, no heat, and now I'm cold and mad.
Let's erase that last sentence. Because you my friend, are going to skip all over that whole part, and go straight for the crackling, flames dancing, high five you just built your first fire kind of thing.
4 Tips on How to Start a Fire
First thing you need is a means to start a fire. Obviously, there's matches and lighters, which are what most people use on a daily/regular basis. You should have them on hand, especially a set of strike anywhere matches. Keep them dry, wet and fire are not friends.
However, a true fire builder and preparedness person, will have another way to start a fire that doesn't require constantly purchasing the item from a store. This is the friction method, and though you can rub two sticks together, I recommend investing in a magnesium fire striker. It's a one time purchase and when done correctly, produces a fire very quickly. (However, when not done correctly you can sit there for 15 minutes and a blister for your trouble, check out my video for two simple tips to avoid that and get your fire started super quick!)
We bought this fire striker for my son for his birthday and he had much better luck with it
than the smaller strikers–> Exotac polyStriker XL
Second thing you need is tinder. This is what your baby fire will eat to grow. Many folks will use a crumpled up paper bag or newspaper. Dry moss, dry grass, small dry wood shavings (are ya getting the dry part 🙂 ), and one of my favorites, is dryer lint.
Third thing is your kindling. This can be small pieces of dry wood or actual small dry twigs and sticks. But they need to be small for our little flames.
How to keep your fire going
When your fire is first started, in your excitement, it can be tempting to pile a whole bunch of wood on top of your flames to make sure your fire doesn't burn out, but fire needs oxygen and you may end up smothering it. The best way is to add two to three pieces of wood in a teepee fashion to ensure enough air flows between the wood.
Fourth thing is larger fuel. This is small to medium pieces of wood and last, you'll put on regular pieces of firewood or logs.
A note about wood. You're going to want seasoned or dry wood. If you use green or wet wood, then you're going to be producing smoke, lots of creosote, and very little heat. Green wood is when you fell a living tree and the moisture in the wood hasn't had a chance to dry out yet, we want seasoned or dry wood.
Hard wood will burn hot and for a longer period of time than a soft word. Maple is a good all around choice where we live.
And though it's not life or death, every campfire needs something to cook on in it and though it's not very pioneerish, s'mores are my favorite. So get your fired started and invite me over, I've got my roasting stick and Dutch oven ready!
I have a magnesium striker. I also have several magnifying glasses. I know that you need sun for using it, but I think it’s a good investment anyway.
Melissa, The rod that you are striking with the blade is not a magnesium bar. It is a ferrocerium rod. You can buy a “mag bar” at most sporting goods departments, but its different than a sparking rod. You shave the mag bar into a small pile, then light those metal shavings with the sparks from the small ferrocerium bar on the side of the mag bar. Essentially, you burn the magnesium and you spark the ferrocerium. Also, if you impregnate your drier lint with candle wax or paraffin it will catch those ferrocerium sparks even better. Cattail fuzz works great in the wild, too. The rest of your video was truly excellent. Hope this helps your audience.
Thanks so much for the distinction and the tip about trying candle wax or paraffin. Love the Cattail idea.
Another thing you can do for tinder is to rub a little petroleum jelly (Vaseline) into your dryer lint or cotton balls. It’s a little easier than using wax. Keep them in a container like an empty pill bottle. You can stuff a lot of them in there.
With a 9-volt battery & 0000 steel wool (finest) Rub the terminals of the battery on the steel wool. There’s a vid on YouTube. 🙂
Great video Melissa, we have magnesium starters but haven’t used them yet. We will be trying them soon, I get the learning curve. We’re so spoiled, aren’t we? I know this was a ‘basic’ lesson, but aside from teepee fires, what about ‘log cabin’ fires for heat and longer burning as well as being able to sustain fire in rainy situations?
Thank you, and yes, totally spoiled in comparison to the way things used to be and much of the world. I haven’t used the log cabin technique by name (but love that name now that you said it and realize that’s what it’s called). As long as your baby fire can get some coals established and you don’t block the oxygen flow, then the log cabin technique (I feel cool knowing it’s name now) will work well, you’re basically building a protective barrier around it. Good tip!
Nice video Melissa! Thanks for sharing. I will definitely be getting one of those handy dandy fire strikers. Enjoying this whole series 🙂
Thanks so much, Linda! Those fire strikers are pretty awesome, we own at least three, one for each member of the older people, when my daughter is older, we’ll have four.