I made my first fire today!

ERdept

ERdept

Banned
Joined
May 17, 2005
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Using advice from this forum and some others, I had gradually been making preparations. For what I don't know. I guess that I just like being prepared. Well, my best friend and I went out to Ventura Calif. today and rented bikes to bike on the boardwalk.

I grabbed my BOB just for fun, to use some of the power bars and food in it just to cycle the perishibles. I never really tell people I do these things after telling a coworker and getting the "you're wierd" look from them, I don't tell anyone anymore. I figure they've never been in a situation that they needed saomething and didn't have it.

Anyway, we biked and there was a lot of dried drift wood on the shores. After a while we stopped and I said to my friend that I bet I could build a fire. He said ok, you have 15 minutes.

I took out my BM 710 and started gathering small kindling, took out my magnesium fire starter and sparker, and a cotton ball with vaseline.

I fluffed the cotton ball out and scraped some magnesuim onto the ball and put small kindling and shavings around it. It was quite windy, so I found a depression among some rocks and did my work there. In 8 minutes,I had a fire going. He was surprised and so was I because it was the first one I ever made and didn't quite know how it would turn out. Anyway, we let it burn itself out then enjoyed the rest of our day. I was quite happy with my skills and accoplishment and just wanted to tell you'all.

He now wants a fire starter. I'll get one from ebay and send it to him. Slowy but surely, I'm getting him prepared and giving him skills, and wanted to thank the members here for sharing their skills.

cliff
 
well u can order the "light my fire" fire steel from Canadian tire.. i have two of them and make tons of fires with them...


btw. congratulations on making your first fire. i was pretty proud of myself too when i made my first fire. although i had made it using friction method not a fire starter =)

you should learn the firebow method. it takes a little while to learn but once mastered i'd say you never need a fire starter for the rest of your life. just the natural materials around you =)

cheers. ^^
 
Without my friend putting a time limit on me, I think that I could have made a better quality fire, meaning bigger and better in intensity. The spark, cottonball and magnesium actually now seems like cheating, but I know it works.

I would like to try the above bow method, but I know that that's a LOT toughter. Next time I hike, I'm going to grab my BOB and just use my shoe string and natural materials just to see if I can do it.

One thing I did learn about being prepared, even and especially here in L. A., don't tell people.They think you're crazy.

I know from living through the Rodney King riots how scary a large civil disobedience action can be. I lived in Long Beach at the time and drove through parts of the rioting. I said to my girlfriend at the time, I'm not stopping at any lights and If anyone tries to get in the car, I'm running them over.

After that experience, my thinking on preparedness changed along with the fact that we are overdue for a big quake and have not experienced any terrorism as the east coast has. I'm getting a bug out vehicle (used toyota 4wd) ready and other things. Call me paranoind, but I sleep much better knowing that I'm ready.

Anyway, next time I go hiking within the month, I'll try the bow method of fire building and take pics and give a full report on my results, good or bad.

Thank you fellow board community members for all the help,

cliff
 
You are weird . L:O:L

Try not to feel sorry for them and just move on . Good for you on the fire thing .
It is good to practice .

I find the more I can do , the more I can do . Its kinda an exponential thing .

Another good thing about doing stuff is people who do things tend to gravitate towards each other and you won,t get too many You are weirds any more .

Unless you have shocks on your bike . Then you are just weird . L:O:L
 
Kevin the grey said:
Unless you have shocks on your bike . Then you are just weird . L:O:L
Click to expand...
Hee hee, shocks! 1992 Cannondale M1000 here! Still rigid! Anyways, I know what you mean by people looking at you like 'you're weird.' I am very selelctive who I talk to about my knife/preparedness/outdoor skills stuff. Most of the people just don't get it.

Congrats ERdept! You've got that down, so what's next? Any other outdoor skills goals you want to tackle in the near future?
 
theres nothing wrong with being prepared for the worst. atleast you'll be prepared while your neighbors, friends, and co-workers who gave you the "your crazy" look will be scrambling for supplies and a way out.

good idea to get a used toyota 4wd. they're pretty cheap and keep on kicking. especially if the pavement gets all gnarly from the earth quake.

you could drive yourself up to BC and live in the woods! haha

i've done 1 week camping trips into the rockies with a few of my friends in the royal canadian armed forces... (not a military man myself)... its truly beautiful up there. sometimes no people around for miles.

and learning the fire-bow method is a great way of lighting your fires. the only thing you have to keep it mind is that it produces sweat. so remember to gather all ur materials first. if your sweating and try to go out and find logs to burn ur gonna get mighty chilly mighty fast.

cheers!
 
jca1 thats great practical advice on the gathering of all materials first . I find I often do scramble around .

Did someone mention Toyota 4wds ? I had the lowly toyota tercel 4wd and aside from low ground clearance it was a tank . Get a good battery in there and she,ll start even on those cold ones .
 
One thing I did learn about being prepared, even and especially here in L. A., don't tell people.They think you're crazy.
Click to expand...

Sad but quite true , most people I see live life in a fishbowl , they never think about the worst and are the first to piss and moan when things turn bad.
A good thing you realize just what could possibly take place in your area , I live in the Central Valley here and while Earthquakes wouldnt affect me as much as it would you , the aftermath of a big one (which will happen sooner or later) will affect all of us greatly.
The LA outer area is strewn with mountains that feature many edibles and places of refuge , for those stuck down in the valleys life will be a living hell when the S.H.T.F. , plug that in with the multitude of hungry ,scared people and you have one hell of an ugly situation.
I recall the Rodney King incidents too , even in Fresno here there was some rioting , enough to where my boss closed down early that day.
Anyways i'm rattling on here.

Grats on your first fire like that but even moreso on your will to try out your various gizmos and learn how to use them effectivly. :thumbup:
 
haha thanks kevin...although i had to learn through experience that gathering materials ahead of time was the smart thing to do.

now when ever i hike if i see storm clouds above me i go gather 3 things

birch bark,
lican/oldmans beard/ceder bark shavings,
some small rocks

i usually toss these things into the waterproof liner in my jacket and its ready to go when i need it
the reason i gather small rocks is because it helps to elevate my fire off the ground. in some cases the ground is soaking making it hard to start a fire.

also while i hike i look for natural shelters where i could get a fire going under cover and move the fire if i had to.

cheers
 
not even small logs will burn?

yes in some/most cases soaking/wet wood will not burn easily.

but if you split the wood the core is usually dry. added to that the technique of making feather sticks. you shouldn't have to big of a problem lighting fires.
 
Congrats on the fire.

If I've not had a chance to be out in the wild for a while, I still get a "spark" from using real skills, that have been here forever and will be here when the Robots from Mars come down and stamp out life as we know it.

I was at a mangers workshop and to build trust we all had to tell each other something that the others would not know about us. When I told them I was into primative skills and not cooking with copper pans or home DIY or the other crappy safe comments the others came out with.

They then went on to ask if I could make a fire out of rubbing two sticks together, they thought this was a bug joke. As I had my walking boots on, which I lace with Para Cord and my Buck in my back pack, I made a fire bow at lunch time and set some dry grass alight on the patio of the off-site location we where at. I got a drink that night from each of them, it was an easy bet.
 
In 15,000 B.C., a guy named Og found a lightning struck tree with a dead critter in it. “Mmmmm... tasty” he said. So Og decided to take some of the fire home to the missus. Unfortunately, he didn’t have any pockets, so he invented the “torch”, and carried the fire back to the cave in his hand along with some cooked meat in the other hand. Needless to say, the missus was impressed with the gifts, and soon found herself a new occupation. Googing (Cooking was invented later). The next day while Og was out looking for more food, the goog let the fire go out. Try as he might, he couldn’t find a live coal. And going back to the burnt tree, there was no glowing coal there either. So he galumphed home dejected with only the nest of bird eggs he had found. Now Og’s family was none too thrilled about sucking down raw eggs again, and while they sat around arguing over who’s fault it was that the fire went out, Og’s young son, Pyro, began chanting and twirling sticks and stones around in the bird’s nest. Suddenly, smoke appeared! Magic! (Note the invention of scrambled eggs here).

Years went by as the fire was tended carefully, and young Pyro grew in to Cavemanhood. Again, the fire was unattended for too long and it went out. He tried in vain to recall the words of the chant, but to no avail. His own young son ( still unnamed as was customary until a child reached an age where he was considered a cave-person) acted out what his father was explaining with the birdnest, sticks and stones but without mumbling a word.

Poof! Fire!! So they cooked the meal and celebrated by naming Pyro’s young son. Pyro Junior!! This time the secret of the making of fire was carefully preserved, improved upon, and handed down from generation to generation to this day. And quite frequently now, a new Pyro is born! Congratulations!:thumbup:

Codger:D
 
Reminds me sort of this past may long weekend. Took the kids out for a day trip. They wanted to roast some marshmellows, so we gathered up dry grass, twigs ect and I started the fire.
When I looked at my youngest (15 at the time) and said look fire without paper or matches. She said "you've been watching survivor man again" and walked away.
I said how come when pops (my dad) did it you were immpressed.
They said ah we knew you could do it.
I thought it was funnier then he!!
 
hahaha "youve been watching survivorman again"

les is one crazy guy.. going into the woods with only a leatherman and camera gear. lol
 
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