Building a camp fire

Ok, so this seems simple, right?  Ya get some wood, and set it on fire.  How hard can it be...  Well, as a prepping and survival skill, doing it efficiently is more important then one might think.  Fires are a "system", a combustion process that can be maximized by the way the wood pile is laid out.   Fuel and oxygen need to mix at the proper levels to reduce smoke. 

Now I am no expert, but luckily one of the other Assistant Scoutmasters is.  Being a former firefighter, he is well versed in the "hows and whys" of combustion.  He says its not actually the wood that burns, but a gas that is emitted by the wood as it gets to a specific temperature.  Using tender at first, then a good bed of coals to maintain and achieve the proper temperature is key.  Also creating proper air flow to the lower points of the fuel source so the heat drives the oxygen and gas up as it combust in the right mix.

The advantage of weekend camping every month is we build lots of camp fires.  This also means we gather lots of tender and fire wood.  We also work on building specific types of fires.  Some are for cooking, some are for heat, some are "designed" for a slow burn to last for hours without additional fuel.  

This is one of those tasks that anyone can do in its basic form, but with a little training and experience it can be done much better.

Now the second half of this fire discussion is where you make your own luck.  Fires don't just happen, well, yeah they do, but thats not the kind i'm talking about. Being able to make a camp fire is different from being prepared to make a camp fire.  Having the right tools is cheap in this case.  There is no excuse for not having the right stuff.



Personally I'm never far away from a "fire kit".  I keep a kit in each of my backpacks, in my emergency get home gear in my truck, and larger ones in both my camping gear and in my camp trailer.

So here is one of my fire kits.  Actually this is a midsize one, because its the kit I keep in my hiking pack and it gets used to make campfires regularly.  The waterproof matches and holder was 5 dollars, but they make a smaller on thats only 2.  This kit has 5 wetfire, the smaller kits only have 2 cubes.  The lighter is my Coleman extreme windproof torch. Normally any old 2 for a dollar bic lighter will due.  Even its bag is an upgrade, I normally just toss everything in a freezer bag, but my backpack gets rained on, we go canoeing, all sorts of things, so this kit is kept in a mini watertight roll down bag.  All I need is to gather some wood, and pull out my knife to scrape some kindling and i'm ready to go.  So for what you pay for a cup of Starbucks coffee, you can have a kit that may even you life.



It may seem easy to think of making a fire in the warmth of your living room, or on a nice summer day.  But who needs one then?  The preparation is for when its 20 degrees, and you're wet and tired.  When the wood is damp and your hands hurt and are numbing from the cold, when the light is fading, and the north wind is howling and you NEED a fire for survival.