Mix it up for Winter fire lighting !

pitdog

pitdog

Joined
Apr 13, 2007
Messages
12,294
kgd's recent thread about making fire with wood shavings was a great way of getting people to practice their skills so here is a little more food for thought.

Fine wood curls work great when your in a nice dry environment, even after a rain shower it's possible to reach the dry inner by splitting the wood down.
The problems arise when in a climate such as where I am during the Winter months. The rain is so constant that all the wood becomes soaked through to the point where fire from wood alone becomes next to impossible, at times like this we have to resort to other methods !

What I like to do and have found to be most effective is to combine an easy lighting tinder with some form of resin.

Here is some dried resin I found today, in Winter this stuff is one of the best firestarters you will find~

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This is my favorite stuff, resin has dripped on the ground and mixed with the old pine needles ~

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I scooped some up on a stick ~

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I then shaved up some Cedar bark and added this to the resin so as to take the initial spark~

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A few strikes later and we had fire !

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A ball of resin this size will burn for around 8 minutes extremely hot even in wind and rain !

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I must add a word of warning~ Once lit, this resin is very hard to put out, if you get it on your skin or clothes you are in big trouble ! Even when dropped in water I have seen this continue to burn.

On my way out of the woods I came across this cool guy~

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Now kgd's got the ball rolling let's see what bad weather tinders you can find !
 
Great stuff Pitdog. I'll keep my eye out for the few redpines we have about and scrape some crusty stuff for firelighting!
 
thanks pit!
funny, i did the same thing the other day for kdg's thread, but never got around to posting.
tho i did it in my backyard. one lone pine there. pitch is another item i always carry.
there are numerous areas in the country where it cannot be readily found.
but i collect whenever i find pitch.
plastic film canisters, those cheap little keyring pill bottles found at discount stores, spice jars whatever.
whenever i'm in woods that i'm sure to find pitch i also carry a plastic knife in a baggie-to minimize mess and avoid having to get the stuff off my knives.
often one strike is all it takes.
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funny story-sorta-spent a saturday some months ago doing a "sampler" class with a group that teachers wilderness/survival skills. didnt imagine that the 6 hr class would cover much i didnt know(tho i'm always open to learning), but i wanted to check the group out, see if they were folks i'd be interested in working with in the future. they actually did a pretty good job covering basics in that short amount of time. their "headquarters" is located right next to a large wilderness/preserve area with many options for skills practice. when we returned to the headquarters they had bow drills all made up and did a short demo then let everyone make fire or at least try(most were successful, even tho most were first timers with a bow drill). then there was some discussion/overview of the day and what folks could expect if they took the intensive courses. someone brought up about making fire in the wet/winter. and tho the wilderness area we had hiked in had numerous coniferous trees and pitch dripping down many of them, the instructor basically indicated they would have to take the intensive classes to get into firemaking in that depth. needless to say, i was a little surprised given the experiences of the day. sorry, but i couldnt keep my mouth shut(it was an open discussion style format) and made mention of pitch, pointing out how much of it we had seen on our walk thru the woods. the instructor gave me a rather odd sideways glance but then did go on to talk about using pitch for fire making briefly. what, you have to pay to obtain such basic knowledge? there are more and more folks out there trying to make a living teaching skills and i have respect for many of them. but when someone asks you a direct question...share your knowledge, dont tell me they have to pay for that(am i way outta line here?). sorry-end of rant.
 
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its kinda almost like having
a clear plastic window on my Fruity Pebbles
so I can see what prize is in there before I buy it.
:D

Im with you,if you ask for questions,
be prepared to give answers...
Nice going.
 
sadiejane said:
funny story-sorta-spent a saturday some months ago doing a "sampler" class with a group that teachers wilderness/survival skills. didnt imagine that the 6 hr class would cover much i didnt know(tho i'm always open to learning), but i wanted to check the group out, see if they were folks i'd be interested in working with in the future. they actually did a pretty good job covering basics in that short amount of time. their "headquarters" is located right next to a large wilderness/preserve area with many options for skills practice. when we returned to the headquarters they had bow drills all made up and did a short demo then let everyone make fire or at least try(most were successful, even tho most were first timers with a bow drill). then there was some discussion/overview of the day and what folks could expect if they took the intensive courses. someone brought up about making fire in the wet/winter. and tho the wilderness area we had hiked in had numerous coniferous trees and pitch dripping down many of them, the instructor basically indicated they would have to take the intensive classes to get into firemaking in that depth. needless to say, i was a little surprised given the experiences of the day. sorry, but i couldnt keep my mouth shut(it was an open discussion style format) and made mention of pitch, pointing out how much of it we had seen on our walk thru the woods. the instructor gave me a rather odd sideways glance but then did go on to talk about using pitch for fire making briefly. what, you have to pay to obtain such basic knowledge? there are more and more folks out there trying to make a living teaching skills and i have respect for many of them. but when someone asks you a direct question...share your knowledge, dont tell me they have to pay for that(am i way outta line here?). sorry-end of rant.
Click to expand...

Sadiejane - I haven't experienced all the outdoor guru's out there, but I have had some great opportunities to share time with folks like George Hedgepeth and Terry Barney. When you talk to guys like these, they listen and then they tell and you usually strain to remember all the things they say. Anyhow, I liked your story but I've come to the conclusion that great instructors are ones that just have self confidence and part of that mindset is keeping an open mind and willing to learn as opposed to try and brow beat others with their reputation and know how. The guys I mentioned above were great mentors because they listen to you as much as they teach. Real world folks, masters of their craft and so interested in what they do, as opposed to marketting themselves, that they continue on the path of learning.

Pit - I gathered my resin today and will be pumping up a post for your challenge. Thanks for posting this fire skills challenge thread!
 
kgd said:
Pit - I gathered my resin today and will be pumping up a post for your challenge. Thanks for posting this fire skills challenge thread!
Click to expand...

Sounds good buddy, I look forward to it !;):thumbup:
 
Okay, resin bearing trees are not a plenty in my parts, but there are a few around and I tend to know where they are. There is a lonely scotch pine in my prairie and on my way back I took some of the resin found in this little hole.

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I brought some of the scrapings home and just this afternoon I was fooling around with it using a firesteel. I practiced in a terr-cotta pot holder so that's the red colour of the background.

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Broke up the chunkies into a bit of powder

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This stuff wouldn't light on its own with the fire steel, but it did liquify and turn into black goo

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I smeared the goo on some wood chips and continued to scrape at the fire steel. Once I got flame, the goo then acted as a pretty good little fuel, sustaining the flame and helping get the wood chunks on fire.

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I imagine that the water content of the resin plays a big role in its flammability. However, lesson learned here is that if you can get the stuff warmed up enough to spread it then it seems to work very nicely. Fatwood is much easier to light than this stuff but then again it really likely depends on the quality of the stuff you harvest.
 
If you have ever heard a barred owl scream due to an anomaly like a human in the area, it sets you on end. I remember splitting logs on a cold night one time, and was shaken out of my bones. Sounds like a high pitched woman being dropped into a blender. I've had to make a lean to just for building a fire one time.
 
This is a stump a couple feet off the ground with a bunch of rotten wood and this little round protrusion sticking up. Some pretty decent pitchwood in there. This is real common in these parts.


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Important thread-as Ray Mears puts it, the irony of firecraft is the more it is needed, usually the harder it is to start. I spent the weekend at 9,000 feet doing some trout fishing in the Frank Church Wilderness and there was already a foot of packy snow covering the ground. Of course this meant all the easy to reach dry deadfall associated with pine forests was basically useless. However a 26 inch Wetterlings made quick work of some 6 inch lodgepoles, which in turn got sawed into 2 foot sections, split and then shaved from the inside. Dead standing wood is probably your most reliable source in the winter, as dead trees don't have needles or leaves to hold bunched up snow that will melt and sog up the trunk itself. There was some old man's beard to be found but most of it was really high-a fire had burned all the low reachable branches that you can typically find.
 
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