Starting a fire

[wiiawiwb]

Over the years, I've always been interested in methods of starting a camp fire. Decades ago, it was a waterproof matches or a Bic lighter. Then firesticks, then ferrocerium rods and magnesium. Lately, I've been using various friction-fire methods.

On my camping outing two weeks ago, it had rained for a couple of days and the wood everywhere was either wet or at least damp. I assembled a wood pile of small twigs and was ready to light it with tinder from wood shavings. One of the guys said, "Step aside" and threw large logs on my little pile. I said to myself there is no way he's going to start this fire.

He went to his truck and brought back a propane torch, set it under the wood he had piled, and turned it on full bore. Less than a minute later, that pile of large wood was ablaze.

I guess it shows you can teach an old dog new tricks!

[bluestar99]

Re: Starting a fire

I make my own fire starters. Get a fiber egg carton. Fill each egg cup with dryer lint or wood shavings. I use shavings from my surface planner. Then pour in melted wax, making sure there is plenty of saturation. Once cooled, break the carton into 12 little fire starters. They work real well. During the garage sale season I buy cheap junk candles for pennies and usually make a big batch at once. This lasts me the whole season.

[Happy Joe]

Re: Starting a fire

Done the propane torch (and weed burner) thing, mostly for charcoal.
I used to do the single match with found tinder for the first fire each trip but drifted away from it (strike anywhere matches are poor quality and not common anymore). A BIC, or just for jollies, a fire steel is used now.
For years I used trioxane fuel tabs for inclement weather fires, but they are no longer common.
Estbit tabs still work, kind of... but not as well.
A friend gave me a case of gelled alcohol fake fireplace fuel and we have been using that up gradually... a teaspoon is plenty, smells like soap and isopropyl.
The traditional petroleum jelly genuine cotton balls are still a bit messy and still work... imitation cotton balls do not (...well maybe if you get out the torch!)..
I typically use a solar dryer so dryer lint is not something that I need to get rid of...


Enjoy!

[MacGyver]

Re: Starting a fire

I've been using Trioxane, the military fuel bricks for years. Might have to throw a few blocks under wet wood to get it going, but one block has never failed to start reasonably dry wood.

[Mike]

Re: Starting a fire

For wet weather camping, you best friend is an axe. Usually, only the outside of the wood log is wet. If you split it with your axe, you have dry wood inside. This gives you a good dry hot fire instead of the smoky smoldering punky fires like when you burn whole wet branches or wet logs with the outside drenched in rain water.

The torch idea is pretty clever. Another cheap method for wet weather fire starting is to get a jar of vasoline at the dollar tree and mix up big globs if it with a bag of cotton ball from the dollar tree. Wipe your hands off with paper towels and use those for kindling too. So, for two bucks if you can't get a fire started with a pint of petroleum jelly and a bag of cotton balls, then it is time to go home.

[Irate Mormon]

Re: Starting a fire

Heh heh. My son and I took a rare opportunity to go camping together recently. He is a big bushcraft fan (I am getting there). So we carefully built a fire using tinder (dryer lint), small twigs for kindling, etc., up to split tree branches (a good bushcraft knife is helpful here), and got a nice fire going with only one strike of a ferro-rod. We were camping on a river and some kayakers put in where we were. It was a family group, and the father immediately pulled out a propane torch and some tarpaper. Got a nice hot blaze going with minimal time and effort. At first I thought he was clueless. But, the weather was cool, and they were fishing from open-top kayaks. So they got wet. So, they needed to warm up and dry out in a hurry. Made sense to me!