Tom Murphy commented on our post about building a fire outdoors and provided some good advice he was given when he asked for fire building help:
- Dead wood burns easier than green wood.
- Gather a barrel of twigs, an armful of sticks, and a handful of branches and a couple of logs.
- Start small and slowly build up the ash bed/fire.
- If wet, split logs into quarters and strip outer bark.
- Place logs near fire to pre-heat and drive off as much moisture as possible.
- Birch bark and pine needles are excellent kindling.
- Use dryer lint to catch the spark from the fire steel & then add more dryer lint to that starter flame until the pine needles and birch bark light.
- Use a “Lincoln log” chimney structure and have something handy to literally fan the flames.
I am personally enamored with using cotton balls dipped in Vaseline as a fire starter. I think it burns a little hotter than the cotton lint alone, but these are personal choices.
I certainly want to reinforce his suggestion to pre-heat your bigger logs prior to piling them on the fire.
And finally, when it comes to fire building and fire maintenance too many cooks spoil the brew.
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October 20th, 2010 | Tags: fire | Category: Cold Weather Camping, Winter Camping Skills
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