Building a fire properly

R

richard w

Joined
Oct 25, 2000
Messages
21
I need help from you guys! I can start a fire OK using my Ferrocerium rod and tinder, be it kitchen towel or cotton wool balls impreganted with vaseline.
However what I need to do is burn as much of the wood I am pruning, from a large overgrown area of land, as possible. I have cut down and graded the wood into different thicknesses, but whatever I do the fire goes out after about 4-5 minutes.
The wood I am burning is all damp/ wet following out wettest autumn/winter for many years.
What is the best construction? Tepee, log cabin type or anything else. I really do need some help on this as the wood pile is growing considerably and I am fed up with trying to light fire after fire.
 
I don't get to hung up on fire lays.... Is the wood green? Or just wet?

What I would do is build a big fire using dry seasoned wood... I'd lay all of my wood that is wet around the fire, letting it dry...before placing it on the flames.

Other options are to suspend the wood above the fire so that it dries before placing it on the fire....

If the wood is green... it will burn but you'll need a very hot bed of coals and flame before it will.

Some will advocate a teepee fire so that you can lean the wood over the flames.... We'll that is fine if you only have a small amount of wood and only want a small fire...

So... my advice...

1. build a huge Davenport crap lay.
2. Place wet wood around and over the fire
3. Once dry add to the flames
4. Rotate more wet wood to around and over the flame.
5. Roast the marshmellows until golden brown.

Good luck
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Greg Davenport
Simply Survival's Wilderness Survival Forum
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Why don't you just pile it all up and splash on some gasoline? The trick will be having some way to control the burn. Needless to say, choose a non windy day...
 
Matthew....
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I would advise against using gas... for several reasons...

1. It won't work. You will have an immediate large flame that will quickly singe the hair in your nose and just as quickly die down (especially using the wood described here).

2. It is dangerous. Human instinct is to add more gas when the flames die off (which they will). I treat many people every year that do just that. Often the flame travels up the fuel source and into the container. burning the individual. another problem described in #1 is that when you light it... there is a quick fire ball which will burn your face, arms, etc. These burns are very painful
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So my advice... use good techniques... forget using gas.

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Greg Davenport
Simply Survival's Wilderness Survival Forum
Simply Survival's Web Page
Are You Ready For The Challenge?
Are You Ready To Learn The Art Of Wilderness Survival?
 
Try using diesel fuel, it won't flare up and has worked well on my spring brush cuttings
 
I've lit fire in the middle of rain and night. The secret is to get a hot core-fire with some dry wood or a lot of small dry branches of spruce, it will burn hot and fast. First you can use a tipi style fire. Build a tipi of the wet wood with enough room for the core-fire in the midddle. You must be able to feed the core-fire with dry wood in the beginning. Then, when the wet wood dries out it will catch fire. At that point you should have added another layer of wet wood on the tipi, so that the flames,and fumes from the fire can start to dry another wet layer. Just dont put the wood to tight, the fire will need air to burn. When the fire burns without dry wood you can just add new layers of wet wood and it will burn until you're out of wood.

Good luck
Daniel
 
Several years ago a happened to learn that napalm and TNT are both very good helpers in lighting a fire. Napalm is not very difficult to get but TNT might cause some trouble. Both work well also in cold conditions.
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TLM
 
Rather than seperating the brush by size, keep it seperated by the age( how long its been since you cut it) take a good sized pile ( maybe 4-6ft in diamter and 2-4 ft tall) thats been cut for a few days and dump a generous amount of used motor oil on the top. Wait a few minutes for it to run down through the pile. Then light it with a propane torch. That will get it started easily and give you a good hot fire to start with.
The trick to keeping it going is not to try and just light a big pile. Get your small to medium pile going good then keep adding to it from your big pile. Just toss it on anyway you can and let the middle burn out, then using a pitch fork throw the ends back in. Once thats burned down some, but while its still burning HOT, add some more from your big pile. Careful how much you add, throwing on to much green stuff with lots of damp leaves will smother your fire.

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I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer... but I've got the sharpest knife in the room.
 
Hi richard,

One completely different approach, if there's an Scouting club near by where you live, give them a call and ask them if they need firewood. It could well be they love to take the stuff out of your backyard jungle
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.

When we get offered firewood we jump to it as we use that for our campfires outside our clubhouse and don't need to buy firewood.

We even sometimes cut down big trees in peoples backyard gardens for free (or a small scouting fee
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) and take all wood.

Best scouting wishes from Holland,

Bagheera

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[This message has been edited by Bagheera (edited 01-17-2001).]
 
I'm used to burn large pile of not so dry to really damp wood, how I usually do is to start the fire with an old tire, it burn really hot and long enough to dry enough wood to get the fire going. To light the tire, use a little gasoline.

The downside is that it's everything but ecological and perhaps even illegal in some areas...

[This message has been edited by CtrlBR (edited 01-17-2001).]
 
I once, long ago, tried to get a fire going with petrol or gasoline. The resulting explosion and fireball threw me back about twelve feet. When I picked myself up I had no beard, no eyebrows and little hair. Luckily I only suffered superficial burns, but I will never do that again.
Anyway if I'd wanted to put an accelerant on to the fire to help it along I wouldn't have come to this forum.

Greg, in answer to your query I'm afraid the wood is both green and pretty wet. I have graded it in different piles from little finger diameter up to about 4" diameter. What I need to know is how to get that initial heat into the fire to help dry the wet stuff. I guess by using dry wood as a base? So is the tepee method best in these circumstances. Should I dig a small pit for the air to get under the fire?

SgtD I like your method, similar to Greg's and will give it a try this weekend. We have actually had a week without rain so this may have helped the wood a little.
Thanks
 
Greetings Richard!

You will need dry something to start it. If you are limited in the amount of dry stuff you have, you could take some of the green stuff and split it into thin kindling, this will facilitate it's drying and burning. You should have a lot if you do this, because it will go fast.

My personal preference, with green/wet wood, is to make a log-cabin type lay. If you have things of suitable size, make a frame at the bottome a stick or two high, then build your fire core in the middle. Use two or three times as much dry wood as you think you'd need. Once it's lit, and you can tell it will burn for a wee bit, build up the 'cabin' around it, stacking pairs of limbs alternate directions. Leaving the top open allows you to add more dry wood/kindling as the core burns, closing the top lets you get more green wood drying.

Another use for this style lay is as a smoke signal. Build yourself a nice fire core, unlight, and the log-cabin frame. Put green, leafy branches at the top in a large pile. When smoke becomes necessary, light the core, and in moments you will have a large pillar of smoke. Could be very useful someday when you are somewhere you wish not to be any longer, and folks aren't quite sure where you are.

Stryver
 
OK, I'll admit there are better (safer & more effective) accelerants than gasoline. Kerosene is a good one and has been suggested. You could use charcoal lighter. I also understand that you want to do this without resorting to accelerants. You should have told us that aesthetics were a consideration!
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Green wood either needs to age, be dried out some and/or be over a very hot bed of coals. It needs to burn HOT to burn.

Ditto on that no gas advice. Diesel (#2), Jet fuel, (Kero/#1) and even motor oil is better.

Anything you can do to help the Scouts would be a good thing.
 
doesnt anyone do it the real way anymore? start with little bits and pieces,add bigger bits and piece,keep adding em till you get it to the size you want....always worked for me.
just checking..
oh yeah,the gas thing,not a good idea (i would know);deisel works MUCH better...
 
I'd always found the lean-to to work best. I start out with a 2-3" dia log, placed nezt to a 6-8" log. I then build a lean-to on the smaller one, starting with the finest tinder available, and putting progressively larget twigs/branches on. Agaonst the larger log I lay larger wetter wood. The innder fire will start, and build up to the point that it can be fed while drying out the logs/branches laying against the larger log.
Actually, a small lean-to can have a tee-pee style built over it. From our scouting days, we found the lean-to more stable (our tee-pee's kept falling down..
Using the lean-to/tee-pee combo, we were able to burn through a string 24" over the fire in under 5 minutes. (4 of us working together)

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Run and you only die tired....
The art of being wise is knowing what to overlook.
Take the Test...
 
Lots of really funny and really bad suggestions here
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Personally I'd just chop it up, pile it and sell it next christmas. And pile the small branches and let them dry for a month. I'll bet that would be least work for you. Burning such a load of wood will take you quite a while.
Apart from that, Greg and Sgt.D, you have the best suggestions so far.

But here's a trick for burning raw wood, I picked up from my uncle:
The laps (sami people) burns allmost nothing but raw wood! They are nomads so they haven't got a garage to stack loads of dry wood, they just chop whatever they need there and then. And since the fires are innside their tipi(-ish) tents, they want to get as little smoke as possible.
What they do is they burn the logs and thicker branches from the middle and outwards. What happens then is that the moist in the wood will seep and steam out the colder ends of the log as the fire heats up the middle. Eventually the wood gets so dry and warm it catches fire, and as it burns it dries the rest of the log. When it's burned off, it's pushed further in gradually. By the time you get to the ends they are so dry you just throw the rest of them on the fire. The smoke is minimal, and it will produce a great fire for your BBQ allso.
This technique is ideal for larger and/or more lasting fires. We do it all the time with our campfires.

This is what they do:
1. Cut your raw logs quite long (2 meters)
2. Make a fire from some dryish wood.
3. Put the logs across the fire with the middle right over the heat.
4. Observe the wonder of the water dripping and steaming from the ends (branches should be cut off in bothe ends.
5. Imagine yourself beeing a lap, and boil some coffee on your fire with raindeer jerky in it.

In fact, this is such a great trick, I think I'll post it as a new ropic.

Grunde from Norway



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How much would a woodchuck chuckle if.. if... -nah, forget it....
 
Thanks for all your help on building a fire. I did as most of you suggested and started with a small fire if very dry tinder. I then increased the size, still with very dry wood and then stacked the smaller wet stuff around the fire tepee style. I increased this as it started to catch and eventually ended up laying the thicker wet stuff across the top, first one way and then the other.
Everything burnt and a couple of hours later I put jacket potatoes in foil into the embers(just like the old days, when we were kids) and ate them in the glow of the fire. Perfect!

Thanks. I now know the way to do it next time
 
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