What do I need to learn about responsible fire starting?

Thanks for all the responses everyone. Helpful.

20gauge said:
Look at Mors Kochanski's Bushcraft, the section on firecraft. He has an extensive description of how to start and put out a fire.
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I live in a college town that has a lot of libraries and one of the biggest archives in North America. I didn't find a copy in town. This being WI, I was surprised. Anyway, I found a copy on Amazon. Thanks for the reco.
 
Rake or at minimum carefully inspect the area as you clear fuel away(or into) your burn area and look for ammo. people have been injured by stray rounds that get dropped and lost in or near firepits.Easily done after a long day of hunting.
 
G'day mac_heath

mac_heath said:
..... Clear the ground in a 10' diameter of tinder, fuel, and other easy burnables. Make sure you don't have overhanging branches.
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A question if I may.

As just one example of many, what would be your response be, when you see a popular member here post evidence contary to your advice?

Would you question what you have seen, or remain silent & retain your popularity at this particular internet subforum?

In other words, would you risk becoming a pariah on the net because you question what you read on internet forums?

Interested in hearing everyone's response to this one.


Kind regards
Mick
 
SouthernCross said:
G'day mac_heath

A question if I may.

As just one example of many, what would be your response be, when you see a popular member here post evidence contary to your advice?

Would you question what you have seen, or remain silent & retain your popularity at this particular internet subforum?

In other words, would you risk becoming a pariah on the net because you question what you read on internet forums?

Interested in hearing everyone's response to this one.


Kind regards
Mick
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Mick, I think it has a lot to do with how one grew up in the outdoors and their subsequent experiences. There will always be more than one way to do things such as this and for one to discount other methods is pretty narrow-minded. Even if I’ve found what works for me (especially in my particular area), it’s good to see how others may do it differently…never too old to learn.

Environments have a lot to do with this topic as well. When in some pretty dry, remote Texas locations, I was much more cautious (when there wasn’t a fire ban). During a reason trip to a much more wet area, practically a rain-forest, I was forced to build a larger fire and baton/split wood that was pretty soaked.

Another aspect is the size of fire you need. It’s nice to have a large fire for recreational purposes, but a smaller fire can be more efficient if you’re just focused on cooking; it also requires less fuel and is easier to manage. A large fire can be a life saver in colder temperatures, but they can create another beast when trying to keep it fed.

If I can’t find a previous fire ring but really need to make a fire (really only for cooking if I don’t have a stove), I really try to keep it small so it’s easy to clean up and make the area look untouched. I think many of us do the precautionary steps without knowing it. Making sure flammable material is cleared from around the fire, making sure you’re not right under over hanging limbs, avoid being too close to trees and their roots, etc.

ROCK6
 
SouthernCross said:
G'day mac_heathInterested in hearing everyone's response to this one.Kind regardsMick
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Mick, hola.........................Broadening out from what Rock6 said about the specifics here I think it is imperative to question. Lay epistemology and received wisdom can be just as much of a bight as a blessing, especially now we have tinterwebz. I minded of the accurate definition of what “Blogging” is a contraction of for some strange reason, “Bullshit Logging”........................... In the way back when it was probably smart to take notice of the local authority figure when it came to matters such as lighting a fire or whatever. That person became popular through demonstrable local knowledge / ability. A local meritocracy if you will. Even then it was essential for the student to question the master or advances would never have been made. Somebody discovered better methods that the teacher's preferred two stick types, or his keeping his char cloth dry by tucking it down his loin cloth. Nature of the beast – the popular and established defends with gusto, the villagers rally in support 'cos it is what they know, the paradigm shifts anyway when overwhelming evidence trumps popularity. What did that bloke say; “nothing good ever came of learning, it unbalances a person”. But after there is calm. Peace is restored to the forest for a while. Rinse and repeat..........................As to the remaining silent to preserve perceived popularity, well I just find that spineless. That said I confess to relishing a pay-off. Two instances spring to mind. A] Some bloke needed a niche so he could make money from knife buyers. He devised a real gimmicky contraption. He was marketing it under “he knows because he's been at the combat front line as a journalist” and a whole raft of other noise. I made a very unpopular challenge to his credentials, his design, in short everything about it. Really, this guy that knew sfuff had a James Bond kit in the cut out of his knife in case when they bagged his head and stripped him down for processing they missed his knife he would still have some apparently essential EE kit for his escape. It also had the all important bottle opener in the spine and self-inflicting spike in the handle. I got tons of crap for that. Turns out the guy was no Kate Aide, the net is awash with info on his phoney “imbed” credentials, and he was exactly the kind of chap to publish personal information about forum member's wife as a means to leverage at a guy with whom he had a disagreement. I still smile a that sleazy business now. I firmly believe had I not made that unpopular challenge you'd have heard bloody crickets and nothing else save for a few kids nodding sagely at this excellent new design. The whole damn clown outfit seems completely persona non grata here now amongst people that know stuff. Unpopular to vindication. It had a long fuse on it but I smiled when it came. B] Draws from another salient example. As you know wool is rather trendy amongst some of the neo-bushcrafters at the moment. In fact, so strong has the halo become that for many it is unimpeachable. Unfortunately that means it is very hard to have an honest discussion about its properties. There used to be a guy here [name escapes me, I think he was called Petty Bugger or something phonetically similar]. He made the most ludicrous claims about wool, apparently backed up by statistics. My challenge to that was never going to be popular. I'm certain it became less popular when his fabricated response was that I stalked him on many forums [I don't know this guy], how he had some serious medical condition, how nobody played with him as a child and that even now he had no friends outside of his immediate family, and how he slept on the floor in a bedsit. Great zot was I ever the villain. It got worse when he went to obfuscate the issue by posting up contents of his photo album showing him out in wool. Tender minds in that thread thought all that had something to do with anything. Plenty of at-a-boy comments crawled out the woodwork. I'm sure I had the popularity of a mosquito. I cared not one iota. He posted the same crap in two threads and he was wrong and I knew it. Happily that ended when eventually a couple of others chimed in to nail him on his statistics. He delivered some very mealy mouthed dog-at-my-homework type response and has never been heard from again. At one point though that deck was so stacked that even though I was right social pleasantries were carrying the day. It was framed as not just that I was using a right answer as a cudgel to dominate an inferior but that I was flat out wrong for even bringing it up. Screw that..............................Having been on this forum for a very long time now I can tell you that popularity is way down on any list of concerns I have. I used to do here what I do at other forums; throw up a user name to post under and when it attracted too much popularity [or any other personal information] for better or worse just burn the account and make a new one. Social information is nice and all that but it can get in the way. I didn't sign up for the Care Bear club or to stroke the ego of anyone. I mostly came to exchange facts in just as dispassionate way as I do on most of the other forums I frequent. I haven't bothered doing that scrape-off here for years now I just let the post count crawl along as hopefully I learn a bit. Sure, as Dunbar writes, we need a certain amount of social gossip babble to keep things moving along. It's the stream upon which genuine information logs are carried. To that extent I suppose that popularity and he's a goodfella is important quite apart from it's nice to be nice. But when that stream becomes so important that all the factual logs that travel upon it become dwarfed and smashed, well that's a circle jerk, a knitting with company love-a-thon, that's selling your arse to be popular, that's a celebrity wannabe. I can tell you unreservedly that when you make a sincere and polite challenge to something I write I'll respect you more.
 
Perhaps it would be helpful to state the goal of the advice. Like so,
Where I used to burn stuff, in the mixed forest of the canadian prairies, it was common to find odd little patches of peat moss. These can be accidentally set lite, and can burn quite a long time. it is good to be aware. Likewise, some mosses that grow in trees can be quite flammable, so it would be a bad idea to light a fire right under the tree you just harvested old mans beard for tinder.
Not all advice is applicable in all cases, so giving the background helps. I think 10 feet is excessive for a fire circle, but I'd never light a fire in an open field of dry grass, where 10 feet might not even be enough then.

Baldtaco- we know how unpopular you like to be :D you sir are a professional Sheeit disturber. But it's a valuable skill, if you don't stir it, it just sits and stinks, mix it around and eventually you get fertilizer. And I'm not bringing up the wool thing again.... ever.... holy freaking crap you'd have thought someone's mother had been insulted. I think sometimes the debate far outstrips the actual gravity of the situation. Besides this is the internet, for all I know all you guys are an FBI undercover operation to find Gecko45!

have fun guys, keep it light, the guy asked for honest advice, no need to bash on each other.
 
SouthernCross said:
G'day mac_heath
As just one example of many, what would be your response be, when you see a popular member here post evidence contary to your advice?
Mick
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Mick,
If you're picking on the specific point of clearing a 10' diameter and avoiding overhanging branches, I'd say that I'm largely parroting what the Scouts recommend. I endeavor to keep a rough circle of that clear, but I have placed my fuel a little closer than that, particularly if it needs to dry out. I haven't had any sparks ignite a fire outside of my fire ring, so I don't have experience with the minimum safe distance. I have seen sparks burn through camp chairs inside of that distance, particularly with a big, roaring fire.

I also live in a dry area, where fire getting out of control is a real danger, so I'm extra careful.

If you have experience the contradicts my advice, I'm happy to read it. My likelihood of challenging it depends largely on my depth of experience. If it's a subject I've spent a lot of time investigating, and my experience is at odds with the contradiction, it's more probable I'd respond to it. I'd first try to figure out why our experiences are so dissimilar.
Thanks,
mac
 
I'd simply say be as cautious as warranted given the circumstances and your experience dictates. If you have lots of experience in a given area then your intuition will probably inform you well of what the hazards are and also what everybody else typically does in that area. If you are new to an area then additional caution might added to your usual tactics. Finding out what is 'common practice' in a given location is usually the first indicator of how you should proceed. Some areas have full fire bans, others allow fire under certain circumstances (in designated pits or only for use for cooking), others are more lenient. The categories can change at a given place during the year so be informed on the local bylaws as they pertain to the area you are at. Obviously if there are restrictions on fire use, even in the lenient category, this should provide a clue as to the level of precaution and harm reduction measures you take. If you really get paranoid about it, a twig stove can be a good solution, albeit less romantic than an open log fire.

Beyond what has been mentioned already in this thread. There are a few specifics to also consider - lighter density/softer woods often throw more sparks than hard woods. Fewer sparks are better than pop poppetty pop burning woods. Be frugal with accelerants, for liquids let them soak into the materials before lighting. Never pour fuel over an open flame. Also be frugal with things like birch bark which flame readily and can easily be blown about in the wind. Keep your fires small and no bigger than you need them to be reducing need for wood prep and use rounds when possible instead of splitting everything into tiny fast/high flame burning pieces. Learn to gage the approximate burn time for different wood types, sizes and cut dimensions. Being able to anticipate the size and burn time of your fire before hand with some accuracy will help. Often the most dangerous time for fire spread occurs when you first start the fire. This is when you have the most fast burning tinder going which is more susceptible to being swept away by wind and which creates the most sparks. The second most dangerous time is when you are done with the fire. Make sure it is out and safe before leaving the site.

As to criticizing others on the internet. Good luck! <-- its not the best way to make friends especially when you don't have all the information.
 
G'day BaldtacoII

baldtaco-II said:
]

I LMFA with your wall of text. In my opinion it will cull those who don't have the ability to discern what is being expressed. :thumbup:

......."Having been on this forum for a very long time now I can tell you that popularity is way down on any list of concerns I have. I used to do here what I do at other forums; throw up a user name to post under and when it attracted too much popularity [or any other personal information] for better or worse just burn the account and make a new one. Social information is nice and all that but it can get in the way. I didn't sign up for the Care Bear club or to stroke the ego of anyone. I mostly came to exchange facts in just as dispassionate way as I do on most of the other forums I frequent."

I take it you realise that my comment about popularity didn't apply to myself, but rather others who look to the internet for validation that they are experienced wilderness survival experts?

...."I can tell you unreservedly that when you make a sincere and polite challenge to something I write I'll respect you more....."

IMO, it's just a pity that more internet respondents don't see it for what it is intended, rather than an insult.


Kind regards
Mick
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SouthernCross said:
G'day BaldtacoII
baldtaco-II said:
]I LMFA with your wall of text. In my opinion it will cull those who don't have the ability to discern what is being expressed. :thumbup:......."Having been on this forum for a very long time now I can tell you that popularity is way down on any list of concerns I have. I used to do here what I do at other forums; throw up a user name to post under and when it attracted too much popularity [or any other personal information] for better or worse just burn the account and make a new one. Social information is nice and all that but it can get in the way. I didn't sign up for the Care Bear club or to stroke the ego of anyone. I mostly came to exchange facts in just as dispassionate way as I do on most of the other forums I frequent."I take it you realise that my comment about popularity didn't apply to myself, but rather others who look to the internet for validation that they are experienced wilderness survival experts?...."I can tell you unreservedly that when you make a sincere and polite challenge to something I write I'll respect you more....."IMO, it's just a pity that more internet respondents don't see it for what it is intended, rather than an insult.Kind regardsMick
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Mick, hey.................Mine too, it's become a useful filter. It was unintentional at first. Regardless of which browser I use paragraphs get stripped. It happens to what I quote too. I used to care a bit but now I don't. In conjunction with the fact that I usually post when I'm too wasted to do anything productive, that I often dictate, that I have a cavalier indifference to the small stuff and type on a keyboard with no icons on, and I really don't buy into the “battling word processors” thing from folks that couldn't hold a DPhil if their sight depended on it, I seem to have built a darnel-elimination-device without even trying. It's not like I expect folks to be able to parse Anguish, but if a few paras, snarly words, or this defeats you, you've probably no business addressing me. ;-) …..........................................Yup. figured as much. I was in blurt mode and generalizing. My ambiguity lacked a clear recognition of that....................................Mmmmmmmmmm, nuance. I gather if you go to the Perez Hilton spot the world is carved up into two piles “haters” and “non-haters”. Hows that for fine granularity, bless 'em..............................Shutting up now 'cos I'm derailing the thread.
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