This diary may be a form of mission creep, but I got a few requests for this specific content.
Here are links to the first three diaries:
#1: http://www.dailykos.com/...
#2: http://www.dailykos.com/...
#3: http://www.dailykos.com/...
Making a camp fire
Before we begin, I’m assuming a few givens: Since these diaries are about crisis management and survival, building a fire, in this context, relates to “Bugging Out.” That you will likely be camping in a suburban or urban area and you are not planning to remain at your camp for more than one night. I am also assuming you are sleeping “rough,” no formal tent, maybe no covering at all, other than a blanket or bivvy bag. This is not a diary about camping, it’s a diary about making fire to facilitate getting from one place to another as safely and quickly as possible.
I’m also assuming you’ve chosen to avoid the official shelters.
Step One: Location
Before you do anything else, choose a good location. The best location is down wind from a windbreak such as a low hill, a brick or stone wall (natural or artificial), a parked car, etc. Don’t choose a windbreak that can burn, such as a wooden shed or wall, or a stand of bushes or shrubs.
And now to contradict what I just wrote: If it’s really windy, and no other windbreak is available, dense bushes or a tarp strung between two saplings or bushes makes a serviceable windbreak (but be wary of sparks).
Find a flat area on high ground. Low ground is colder because cold air falls. If you try to sleep on sloping ground, you’ll find yourself rolling down hill every time you roll over in your sleep.
Choosing the right location can be an exercise in triangulation: Wind seldom has the common decency to blow directly perpendicular to your windbreak. When choosing your fire location, pick a point off the downwind end of the break, about 1/3 the width of the windbreak and 90 degrees perpendicular to it (imagine the windbreak is the back of a capital letter ‘L,’ the fire location is at the end of the foot of the ‘L’). You want the fire at least six feet from the windbreak, but not so far away that you lose the benefit of the break.
Don’t build your fire right against the wall or windbreak: that’s where you’re going to sleep.
Don’t make your fire near something that can catch fire. Keep away from wooden buildings, sheds, dry grass, dead plants, etc. Also, look up: don’t build a fire under overhanging branches or anything else that could catch on fire at least 15+ feet above your head (about three times your height).
Clear an area at least six feet around your fire place (12 feet across). Remove all sticks, leaves, paper, trash, dead grass and anything else that might catch fire and spread fire. Remember that fire can jump: just because something isn’t right next to the fire doesn’t mean it can’t catch fire (this includes you).
Dig or build a fire pit. Your fire pit should be 4-6 inches deep, whether dug into the earth or built up with rocks and/or debris. Make it 12-24 inches across. Make the sides vertical and the bottom slightly convex (mounded in the middle).
Don’t build your fire on asphalt. The heat will release petroleum fumes which can make you sick.
Check the ground for gasoline and oil or grease spills. Don’t build a fire on gas, grease or oil.
Don’t build a fire pit out of wet or even damp stones. Water trapped inside the rock will expand when heated and could cause the rock to crack with enough force to expel shrapnel.
About trespassing
Try not to. If you’re passing through suburbia or the city, just about everywhere you might want to stop for the night is going to be someone’s property, so it can be pretty hard not to trespass. Try to find a public space to camp. Barring that, leave as small a ‘footprint’ as you can. Don’t dig up someone’s lawn, knock down their jungle gym for firewood and for God’s sake don’t break in to their home.
Look for and avoid posted land. You really don’t want to get shot by someone who is sitting out the crisis in their cabin or hunting lodge.
Remember to stop and begin your camp well before the light fails. If you need to make a fire pit and collect wood, you don’t want to be doing it by flashlight. Look for a good campsite (having one planned ahead of time because you scouted your route is even better) throughout the afternoon. It’s better to lose some mileage making a really good camp than not have a suitable place because you waited too long to look.
Step Two: Your ingredients
You need more than logs to make a fire. You also need tinder and kindling.
Tinder
Tinder is very dry, fine and/or fluffy material. A number of things make good tinder: Dry moss or grass (has to be really dry), fine wood shavings (use your knife to shave a dry stick), dry pine needles, shredded newspaper or other paper, and char (see making char, below).
In fact, try to bring tinder with you rather than finding it in the wilds of suburbia. If the weather is wet, dry tinder may be hard to find or, at least, take time to find. You don’t need much and dry tinder can make all the difference when starting your fire. Keep it in an inner pocket and in a plastic bag so it stays dry.
The best tinder from around the house is dryer lint. You can also soak cotton balls in alcohol or Vaseline (keep them in a plastic bag or old 35mm film container, if you still have any – who uses film anymore?). Also try one inch pieces of cotton string dipped in wax.
There are various commercial fire starters which are mostly wood chips and sawdust mixed with wax. You can make these at home using sawdust and paraffin wax. Heat the wax in a double boiler (use one that you won’t be using to cook food in since it’s pretty hard to entirely clean the wax out of it). You’ll also need a cardboard egg carton. Fill each of the egg cups about half-way with sawdust, then pour in melted wax to the top. Let it harden, then separate the cups. Each one is a fire starter.
If you’re in a pinch, haven’t brought tinder with you (or so you thought) and can’t find any good or dry tinder, look in your wallet – no, not the money (though if you’re really desperate...) – find a few old business cards. Tear them into 1/8 inch strips and use them to start your fire. If you’re like me, you’ll also have lots of old receipts and losing lottery tickets you can use for tinder (at least you’ll get something valuable from the lottery tickets).
If it’s raining or has just rained, you may be at a loss to find dry tinder. Look under pine trees. The lowest branches will probably be dead due to lack of sun. Snap them off and you have good tinder. Also look for old pine cones next to the trunk; they’re probably still dry no matter how wet it is. Be careful not to shake the tree too much as that will cause water to rain down from the upper branches drenching your tinder. Also, wear gloves: dead pine needles can be every bit as sharp as cactus spines.
Making char
Char (or char cloth) is just what it sounds like: charred cloth. To make it, find a small tin box like an Altoids mint tin. Poke a small hole, about 1/16” across in the lid. Take some 100% cotton fabric such as an old white t-shirt. Cut the cloth into 2 inch squares. Stack them about 1/2 thick and put them into the tin.
When you have a fire going at home (a barbecue is good for this, after cooking is done and you have a coal bed but no active flames) set the tin box on top of the coals; don’t set it in active flames. Make sure it won’t tip over or slide deeper into the fire. After a minute or two, smoke will start to rise from the hole in the lid. Keep an eye on it. When the smoke stops coming out of the hole (5-8 minutes), take the box out of the fire and set it aside to cool. DO NOT OPEN IT. Only after the box is cool to the touch, can you open it. Inside you should find blackened cloth that feels kind of silky. If it crumbles when you touch it, it’s over cooked and won’t be good as tinder. If it’s brown, not black, cook it more.
Char is basically the tinder equivalent of charcoal; cloth heated to the burning point in an oxygen-poor environment. Char needs only a spark to continue the process of turning itself into fully oxidized ash.
Kindling
Kindling consists of sticks and twigs from about the size of a match stick to the size of a pencil. Kindling is used to build up your fire after you get your tinder going. Place it gently onto the burning tinder and blow on it until it catches. Build up your fire with larger twigs until you have a fire that can start your fuel wood burning.
Feather sticks
One way to help your kindling catch fire is to “feather” the sticks. Strip the bark (if any) off a few larger pieces of kindling. With a sharp knife, shave thin slivers off the main shaft, but don’t cut them all the way off. Let them stay like the quills on a feather. A dozen or so feathers on a few sticks of kindling will provide an easy way for your flame to jump from tinder to kindling. You don’t have to do this, but if you’re having trouble getting your fire past the tinder stage, it can help.
Fuel wood
Fuel wood is what you will burn after your fire gets going. Fuel wood ranges in size from about an inch around to three inches (roughly two fingers’ width to no bigger than your wrist). You won’t need larger wood for an overnight fire. Break or chop your fuel wood into lengths about 12-18 inches.
When breaking wood, don’t swing a branch against a standing tree or rock to break it. The loose end will fly off and may imbed itself in your pack, supplies or friends (and may whip around 360 degrees and hit you!). Instead, take the branch by the ends or by one end and a point about 30” down the branch and bend the wood across your knee, pulling back on the ends until the wood snaps. Pull strongly but not suddenly; you want to keep control of the break. If the wood bends but does not break it’s too green. Find other wood.
Gathering Kindling and Fuel
Few places will have a convenient pile of wood just waiting for you to drop by and start a fire and, if you do, expect someone to come by soon enough and say, “Hey! What the heck are you doing with my fire wood?”
So you’ll need to gather your fire ingredients from the countryside before you settle down. Note: if it is cold out, start your fire as soon as you can after you settle down. You may feel warm and toasty – even sweaty – after all your walking, but that will soon turn to chills if you don’t have a fire going.
In a suburban setting, you can find plenty of woodlot and light forest (clumps or stands of trees between housing developments) for gathering wood. These stands of wood are seldom used for gathering firewood and plenty can be found, unlike campsites which are usually picked clean.
Kindling and fuel can be gathered at the same time. If you have access to woodlot it should be pretty easy to collect a few arms full of wood. Gather dry, dead branches no bigger than your finger or a pencil for kindling and no larger than your wrist for fuel (the measure is for thickness, not length – they can be any length).
The best wood is found above the ground: wood that has caught on other trees as it falls. This wood will be dry unless it has recently rained or is raining. Wood found on the ground will often be wet on the underside.
Test the wood as you collect it: you don’t want rotting, “punky,” wood. If the wood crumbles or the bark easily rolls off it or if it bends way too easily and breaks without a snapping sound, the wood is too far gone to be good fuel. Good wood should flex strongly, then snap. If it bows easily, and flexes back, it’s too green.
In more urban areas, most open space is paved or raw dirt with a minimum of plant life and fewer trees. You’ll need to find your wood in the form of cast-off lumber and wooden artifacts: old two-by-fours, one-by-twos or other sawn wood. Wood transport pallets are a good source; try to make sure you’re appropriating cast-offs, not ones that are just set aside out of doors. Don’t steal. Pull or break the pallets apart and split and break the cross pieces into usable fire wood. Unless you have a saw, the 4 x 4s will be tough to break down. You’ll want big pieces for fuel and smaller bits for kindling.
Old, un-painted wood furniture can also be used. Avoid it if it has a very thick coating of polyurethane.
If your fuel wood has things nailed or stapled to it, remove any plastic but don’t worry about nails, metal staples, cardboard or paper.
You don’t want plywood or particle board (the glue and binders release toxic fumes when burned). Nor do you want painted wood (ditto). Cardboard burns too fast and presents a hazard of blowing away in a breeze or in the heat convection of the fire itself and starting a wild fire. It’s the same – even more so – with paper and dead leaves (cardboard, paper and leaves can be used as tinder, but not fuel).
DO NOT burn the following:
Coated paper or cardboard, rubber, plastic, painted wood, foam rubber (releases cyanide gas when burned), vinyl, and anything other than wood or charcoal (if you can get it).
Water for emergencies
Keep a bucket or other container of water, sand or loose dirt near the fire. If the fire jumps, put it out immediately. Don’t use your drinking water for this. An empty milk jug or two liter soda bottle with the top cut off is good for keeping emergency water gathered from a non-drinking source (check the water by smell and feel to make sure there’s no gasoline or oil floating on it. Look for an oily sheen on the surface. Do I need to tell you not to try dousing a fire with gasoline?).
If you need to deal with an unexpected spark or fire, there are two hard and fast rules: Don’t panic, and respect the fire. A spark landing on your back pack or sleeping bag (or pants leg) is not going to burst into a bonfire. Brush it off, calmly, on to the ground, then douse it with just enough water to put it out. Scrub at it with your boot sole to make sure it’s out. Don’t dump your entire water jug all over it. That leaves you with nothing to handle any other sparks that may jump next. Just put it out as calmly and smoothly as possible with only as much water as needed.
Sleep at least three feet away from your fire. Tamp your fire down and bank it before you go to sleep. Sleep between the windbreak and the fire.
Tamping and banking your fire for the night
To set your fire for the night, wait until it has been reduced to coals; when you think you’re about a half-hour from turning in, stop feeding the fire. Let it burn down to coals. As it burns down, keep pushing any extra bits of un-burned wood into the middle (the hottest part of the fire) so they burn down to coals. When you have nothing left but coals, push them into a small pile, making sure you’ve got all of them together, then cover the coals with dry dirt or sand about half an inch thick. Check to make sure you’ve left no stragglers still smoldering, then go to bed. The dirt will seal off the coals from the air and keep them hot and smoldering all night long.
Getting it going again
In the morning, gather some tinder and kindling. Set up a new fire over the coal bed (use the log cabin formation for this – build about three layers deep. See below for reference). Reach into the middle with a stick and scrape the dirt off the coals. Blow them to life. Place your tinder on the coals and blow on them until the tinder catches. Add kindling and fuel until you have a new fire going.
Putting your fire out
Before you move on, PUT YOUR FIRE OUT and make sure it’s out. That means more than just pouring some water or dirt on it. Douse your fire to the point that you can’t see any more glowing embers, then add some dirt and stir it thoroughly with a stick. If you see any large coals, jab at them with your stick, they may break apart revealing live embers inside. Try breaking up any large coals this way. Douse the coals some more, add more dirt and stir again. When you think it’s really out, hold your hand next to it. If you feel heat, douse it some more. When you think it’s so out that you could put your hand right into it... put your hand right into it. If you get burned, it serves you right. Douse the fire more.
(Okay, the point is not to burn your hand, but to make sure the fire’s out. The only way to be sure of that is to use your most sensitive tool: your sense of touch. Feel free to “test the waters” as you check the coals; don’t just grit your teeth and plunge your hand in. Poke and prod a bit, ready to pull back at the first sign of heat. Just, please, make sure the fire is really, truly, out before you move on.)
Step Three: Fire building
When it comes down to it, making a fire is pretty easy. You just need a fire source, some oxygen and fuel. If you try to build a fire and discover there is no oxygen nearby, run as fast as you can to a place with oxygen. Then document the oxygen-free location and contact the National Academy of Sciences. ;-)
Fire sources
Fire can be started by a number of means.
Lighter: Butane or Zippo. I bought Zippos for the utility and discovered one bad thing about them: they go dry pretty quickly. Now I keep the Zippo in a plastic bag with a small fuel can and keep a butane lighter for general use. The benefits of the Zippo are that you don’t have to keep your thumb on it to keep it burning, it can burn almost any fuel (kerosene, gasoline, etc.), it’s re-fillable and will last for years. A butane can explode if it falls in a fire and it’s not re-fillable so it adds to the trash pile when it’s empty.
Matches: Get water- and wind-proof matches at the camp store. Keep them in a water-tight box (also available at the camp store). You can make matches waterproof by dripping candle wax onto the heads. Scrape the wax off before your strike them and watch out for dripping hot wax when you use them.
Flint and steel: Just what it sounds like... or not. You need high carbon steel to begin with. Most pocket knives, nails, belt buckles, scissors, etc. have too many alloys in them to make good fire strikers (you can’t use stainless steel). Flints can be purchased at most camping stores. Unless you’re a real rock hound you probably won’t find any flints on your own out in the world. The best thing is to buy a flint and steel set. In such a set the “flint” is actually a magnesium alloy which makes more sparks than flint alone. If you’re into it, you can also get “historic” fire kits that allow you to make fire the way they did in ye olden dayes of yore (I have one, it’s pretty cool. But I use matches, a lighter or my blast match when I really need a fire).
Blast match: There’s a link for this in diary #3. It’s amazing. So much better than a flint and steel it’s almost scary. Do not strike it near your face, you could lose your eyebrows (okay, the first time I tried it, I lost a bit of eyebrow. Who knew?).
Lens: a magnifying glass or even your reading glasses can be used to start a flame as long as there is enough sunlight. You just need to find the focal point (the point where the bright spot of light caused by sunlight refracting through your lens is smallest and brightest) and hold it on the tinder long enough for the heat to build to the ignition point.
The MacGyver method (or, If you have all this crap in your pockets, why don’t you have matches or a lighter??). This method is included mostly for fun, but under the right circumstances (what do you mean you only brought three matches!?) it might come in handy.
A battery, two wires and some steel wool: Pull the steel wool into a thin sheet about two inches across. Strip the ends off your wires (use the wire strippers you brought instead of a lighter). Put one end of each wire into the steel wool. Take the other ends of the wires and hold them against the terminals of the battery (a nine volt or D cell battery is best for this. An A AA may be too weak). After a few moments, the steel wool (acting as a resister to the current) should heat up like the coils on an electric stove, turning bright red or orange. Quickly drop the steel wool into your tinder and blow the tinder to life.
Rubbing two sticks together: You’ll probably have better luck rubbing two boy scouts together. There are plenty of sources on the web that describe various methods of “primitive” fire starting.
Building your fire
I recommend two basic fire builds: the teepee and the log cabin. Start with a teepee and build a log cabin around it when the fire gets going.
The teepee fire
Begin with a pile of tinder between the size of a golf ball and a baseball (or cricket ball). Lean kindling on the tinder at 45 degree angles until you have a loose little hedge of tinder 3/4 of the way around the tinder. Do not enclose the tinder completely (leave the upwind side open so you can reach the tinder to light it) and don’t set the kindling too solidly; leave spaces for air to circulate. This makes a little teepee shape about five inches across.
Next, take three fuel wood sticks. Find ones with ‘Y’ shaped tips (smaller branches off the main stick close to one end). Take two sticks and make an inverted ‘V,’ using the ‘Y’ ends to interlock them, and set them on the upwind side of your fire. Hold them in place by the tops and take a third stick, placed in the middle of the down wind side. Lean them together over the middle of your fire to make a tripod. The ‘Ys’ in the ends will help them remain stable. Then build up more sticks around them to make another, larger teepee. Leave the upwind side open and, again, leaves spaces for air to circulate between the sticks (you want about a 60-40 balance of wood to air space). When you’re done, you have a small teepee inside a large teepee. Take a long piece of kindling and light the end on fire with a match or your lighter. Place it gently into the gap to light the tinder. When the tinder gets going, fill in the fuel wood gap with more sticks to close off the opening. In a short while the tinder will light the kindling and the kindling will light to fuel wood and you’ll have a nice warm fire. Add more fuel as needed, maintaining the teepee shape until the shape starts to crumble as too many supports fall into the middle.
This is when you’ll build your log cabin.
The log cabin fire
The basic log cabin fire is built up like the walls of a log cabin: two horizontal logs are laid about 10-14 inches apart, then two parallel logs are laid perpendicular to the first, on top of them, and so on. You seldom want more than three or four levels. Many people also lay each layer slightly closer together than the last so the upper logs are not directly over the ones below (this makes a kind of truncated log pyramid).
I favor a variation of this form. Instead of perpendicular, I lay the upper levels at a roughly 45 degree angle to the bottom logs, alternating back and forth. Do three levels at most. I think it gives a better flame and more heat. I could be wrong.
Either way, you build your log cabin around the teepee fire once the heart of the fire is good and hot. With a little judicious tending – turn the logs for even burning, push the un-burnt ends into the center, add logs as needed, you can keep a fire like this going for hours or even days.
Cooking fires
If you choose to bring along foods that require cooking (if, say, you are bugging out in your car) you can easily cook over your fire. While you can cook over open flames (it limits you to not much more than marshmallows and hot dogs cooked on sticks), cooking over coals is better: the heat is more even and the temperature is higher. And since you want to keep your fire going while you cook, you’ll want to modify your fire pit for cooking.
Keyhole fire
Build a rectangular addition on to your circular fire pit on the one of the sides that isn’t upwind or down wind (this makes your fire pit look like an old-fashioned keyhole. If you’re too young to know what that looks like, it looks kind of like an arm-less, ear-less Pikachu). The addition should either be big enough to accommodate your grill or your pot (you don’t want to put a pot – especially an aluminum pot – directly on the coals, you need the stones to support it above them). Use larger, squarer stones or bricks for this. Once you have a nice level, sturdy space for cooking, start your fire and wait until you have a good bed of coals. You need a good bed of coals because you’re going to use a stick to push some of them into the cooking area. Don’t push aside all of your coals: hot coals are what keeps your fire going. Add coals to the cooking area as needed and keep your fire well tended to ensure a ready supply of coals.
Eight simple rules for fire making and keeping
- Gather and organize your supplies before you start your fire.
- Tend your fire.
You can’t just build a fire and let it go like turning on a light bulb. Fires need tending. Turn the logs to keep new wood burning. Add wood as needed. Tend the coals by pushing them deeper into the heart of the fire. Maintain the shape and air flow: don’t just let it collapse into a smoldering pile.
- Never leave a fire alone.
Never, ever walk away, even “just for a second.” A fire is a living thing and any stray breeze can cause a spark to jump starting a wild fire. Always have someone tending the fire.
- Teach kids about fire and carefully watch them around it anyway.
No roughhousing around the campfire. Burns are among the most painful and disfiguring of injuries.
- Tamp and bank at night.
Never go to sleep with the fire still burning.
- Respect the fire.
Like a “tame” lion, a fire is never entirely safe. Respect the fire and it will be your friend. Treat it casually and you will almost certainly regret it.
- Always have water handy to deal with stray sparks.
- PUT IT OUT!!
Only one link this time:
http://www.mja.com.au/...