your FIREPLACE fire set up. How do you?

[Joezilla]

Oh the lovely indoor fireplace. In the cabin I'm at, I have one, and love it, as it is the source for my indoor fire playing and a great place to try recipes (and usually burn them) with the Dutch oven. When hanging out with neighbors, I've seen that all of them have truly different methods for starting fires, from the traditional small sticks to big sticks method (A bucket next to their pile by the door, with twigs, etc), people with duraflame logs they like to cut with a cheese knife, to an awesome method of making one's own fire bomb (I'll do a write up on it at some point). Obviously, everyone has their own set up for creating a cozy indoor fire. How do you go about making yours? Do you char a weeks worth of news paper, use sterno, throw the latest copy of the wife's pride and prejudice novel in there? How do you go about it from start to finish!

 

[HankS]

I just flip the switch on the wall.....Gas Fireplaces!

Hank

 

[jds1]

I have a small cast iron dish with a corrugated ceramic insert which holds about a cup of lamp oil or kerosene. Mixed with ash from previous fires it will burn slow and steady long enough for even wet wood to catch. I start with ~2" thick pieces to get a nice bed of coals before adding larger chunks.

Jeff

 

[pitdog]

I use Fuzz-sticks first then lay some other similar sized kindling over them as they burn, then add midsized stuff before finally going for ones like on the right of my pic....

 

[ZombaiO]

I do it just like Pitdog :thumbup:

 

[theedge13]

I just flip the switch on the wall.....Gas Fireplaces!

Hank

Thats the way mine works too.

 

[Joezilla]

I have a small cast iron dish with a corrugated ceramic insert which holds about a cup of lamp oil or kerosene. Mixed with ash from previous fires it will burn slow and steady long enough for even wet wood to catch. I start with ~2" thick pieces to get a nice bed of coals before adding larger chunks.

Jeff

Glorious!! Thats what I'm talking about!

 

[T. Erdelyi]

I have a small cast iron dish with a corrugated ceramic insert which holds about a cup of lamp oil or kerosene. Mixed with ash from previous fires it will burn slow and steady long enough for even wet wood to catch. I start with ~2" thick pieces to get a nice bed of coals before adding larger chunks.

Jeff

This is the best method for a fast indoor fire, we use it all the time when we're in a hurry, other than that it's usually what ever method is easiest at the time and it depends on what materials were left by the last person who started the fire.

Once it gets cold my wife has a fire goin' all day and when we go to bed she banks the fire, come mornin' she usually can coax a couple of glowin' embers into a roarin' mornin' fire before I even come down for my coffee.

We have had coal/wood stoves and fireplaces for heat since I was a kid and since my wife met me so startin' the fire was never the issue it was who could do it with the least.

We were at a wedding dinner with some people we barely knew and the topic of conversation turned to survivor and similar type shows, the question was asked, "Do you think you could start a fire out in the wilderness with just a match?".

All the men chimed in quickly, all the women scoffed, except my wife, she challenged all of 'em to prove it in the parkin' lot, no takers, obviously, I was very proud of her that day.

 

[August West]

I have a small cast iron dish with a corrugated ceramic insert which holds about a cup of lamp oil or kerosene. Mixed with ash from previous fires it will burn slow and steady long enough for even wet wood to catch. I start with ~2" thick pieces to get a nice bed of coals before adding larger chunks.

Jeff

My grandpa taught me to do the same thing except he used a very small cast iron skillet. Think it might have been designed for an ash tray originally. Chris

 

[warrigal]

Occasionaly we get cheap pine disposable pallets at work. I saw them into 1ft lengths then split/batton them into slivers. I also collect all the chips from splitting the Ironbark blocks. I use a couple sheets of newspaper. balled up and the construct a log cabin fire lay ( By leaps and bounds my fav)
I keep some firelighting blocks for emergency ( ie out for the day) lighting.
Our fire mainly runs from 3-4am till 9-11am most the time it is running. Only over night for about a month and from 4pm-overnight for a month as well.
The boy has been over my shoulder ( he is now four) ever since. I came up one morning from downstairs when he was about 2ish and went to set the fire, no pine?? He had put news paper on the ( dead coal bed) and then the pine on top good fella. One weekend more recently I was away SWMBO was trying to set the fire when he came over and told her that isn't how Da does it, then set her right.
Pre the lad we went to a local pub for dinner when the manager was trying to light wrist thick bark covered logs with newspaper. Hmm I guess we all know how successful that was? I offered to light it if he comped one of the meals he accepted. Out to the car from Bob I took a hatchet and some Heximine ( the Oz Armys equivalent to trioxoline) Used one log to batton the others caught all the mess on spread out newspaper. Eight minutes later I have a roarer.
Carl