Trivial as it sounds, the way a stick snaps and can define how long it takes to make a roaring fire. Preparation is the key in making sure you have a mini-conflagration fit enough to carry the heat up the various sizes of sticks in your pile. For the casual and experienced woodsmen, this article assists the process of fire making with a little thought behind it, along with some tricks, both old and new.
Get enough!
Many times, people start to make a fire that burns out before they are ready. When organizing a fire, it is important to gather enough material to make sure that the flame can continue through your levels of tinder. Some people are able to get stuff going with little, but you’ll find that they have to remake the fire more often than not. We’ll stick to “sticks”, as in kindling, instead of leaves or any other type of tinder. To start out, first is the rule of the toothpick. Gather as much toothpick sized pieces of wood. These have to be crucially dry, and should snap off the tree with ease. Look for dead falls, or branches off of trees that have died or given up. Hemlocks, if you have them in your area, are glorious for this and often have a treasure of dead twigs at the bottom that are perfect to start up from. The Hemlock bark also catches fire readily and makes a terrific coal. I learned that from “Woodcraft and Camping” by B. Mason. Gather a large amount of small toothpick sized wood, maybe at least two large handfuls. You can put them in your hat or invert the bottom of your shirt while gathering.
The tell tale snap
Note the bend in this tree before I broke it. I used the fork break method, but also payed attention to the way the tree flexed.
The snap of the twig is very important. Different times of year can dictate what snaps and what doesn’t, so don’t be fooled by breaking a twig off a live tree, because it is frozen. The best wood snaps off readily, and crisply. If the wood bends before it breaks, then it is either live, recently dead, or has too much moisture in it. Many twigs from the ground, unless very dry, have this characteristic, so you want to avoid them when possible. These woods are not useless, however, because sometimes their bark is pulverized and can be made into a tinder bundle, if dry or it can be dried out, in the pocket. Smaller saplings have dead branches near the ground as well, that are much more desirable as they are open to air and have dried out. Lightning blasted trees also have splinters down the crack that are usually dead and dry, and can work well for kindling. Because these just serve to start the fire, the type of wood isn’t nearly as important as the larger wood that the person puts on later.
After you have a nice bundle of these, you can break them completely in half using a knife, axe, or machete, by pinning them down on one side with a stick and chopping through them gently so that they do not explode everywhere. The twigs can also be broken with the hand and set up in a pyramid style. The next step is to look for twigs straw to finger size. Once again, follow the rules of not using any sticks from the ground. I myself was impressed with how fast I could get a fire going, once I said no to ground twigs. You would be surprised how much moisture is in those things!
Building it
The start of a log cabin style fire. Notice the space on the bottom for tinder. This structure can be
continued all the way up to small split wood, or can be used to start a wig-wam style fire. This particular
fire went with just one match and the bark tinder from a dead hardwood. No fatwood or fuzz sticks.
There are several different styles of campfire architecture you can use to get your fire going. Of course, the classic pyramid style is popular, stacking larger sticks around small ones in a wig-wam fashion. An elevated log cabin style can be made as well, using two larger sticks as a platform and stacking the small tiny twigs on top of that, carefully followed by larger sticks. Reinforcement of the bigger sticks may be necessary, but because the flames go up, this fire burns fast. It is easy to light with a match as well. This fire style is reminiscent of the log cabin style, another fun one to create, to get a roaring fire, quickly. A burning hot fire is very important to start out with, and the log cabin works all the way to large size wood if you are trying to get a fire quick. The criss-crossed firewood cabin should have a hollow spot in the middle to ensure air flow. In autumn, you can use dry weeds and fluffy tops to help reinforce the fire. When building any of the fire styles, the closer you keep the wood, the more smoke you will get, so make sure you leave enough wood to let it breathe.
Rule of the hand
Someone once told me the rule of the hand for kindling, starting out with pinky size working your way up to wrist size. This is a great teaching method for kids, who are perfect for fetching all of the firewood for you while you relax. Don’t forget about straw to pencil size too, and if you are serious about your campfire, take the time to separate them into their specific sized bundles.
The anti fuzz stick
Hemlock branches can be seen here, at the bottom of this smaller tree.
If you are on this site, you probably know all about fuzz sticks, feather sticks, and whatever else may be there. I’m not going to talk about it! There is one interesting method I would like to note. Wedging a stick on a log and in the ground at a 45 degree angle, really allows for torque to get thick shavings. Get a thick stick about the size of a wrist or under, and wedge it on a log and into the ground. Now you can use your fixed blade to take large shavings with anger instead of finesse, by pressing on the spine. Press hard near the top of the wood that is positioned on the log. The shavings will come off and gather on the ground, so you can put a hat or cloth to gather it. If the wood is dry enough, it may take with a match, but probably not a metal match/ferrocium rod. This method is good if you have very hardwoods like persimmon around.
Super Snapping
Can you spot the dead fall that would have good dry wood?
I remember when I was a young kid, about 13 years old, and I went camping with a group of friends. One of them invited a fireman along, and I think I learned a whole new level of campfire kung fu from him. The first was the forked tree break. I had seen it done before and though it was neat, but not to this level. With two people, we could break apart 5 standing hardwood trees in a matter of minutes as long as we payed attention to how the wood bends. Put a dead dry tree in a fork of two other trees, and break by applying pressure like a lever. Now some interesting things: The trees do not have to be close together if the wood is very dry and thin. Look for breaks that have started in the wood and break along that plane. If the wood is extremely hard, have someone one go over and knick the bend with a knife or tool, and break on the snap. You can also use another tree, instead of your foot, to break sticks in half. Another fun thing, if you are as hyper as I can be, is to take logs and throw them at trees to break them in half. We affectionately called it “Ryu-Kening” from the game Street Fighter.
The beginnings of a good foundation of a fire incorporate organization, and it saves time in the long run.
Here a dried branch was stripped of it’s bark and rolled tight to make tinder.
Perhaps you knew some of this already, or maybe you didn’t. What hopefully will happen though is that you deviate from the stuff on the ground, and start opening up to other sources of kindling. Taking the time to make a good, well built fire, is a satisfying experience, especially when it flames up quickly. Teaching children these methods will help them in their wilderness excursions later in life too.