Fire starting. A (Hot) topic... ok, ok I will stop with the puns. LOL. There are literally hundreds if not thousands of methods and aids to create fire. In the beginning learning stages most are taught the physics. Heat, Oxygen and Fuel. And that is necessary, however I feel that most people go straight for the exciting part of fire making. The cool ferro rods, the nifty fire board etc. While we are going to give you all a list of ways to make fire. And a list of many fire-starting extenders, I feel I need to preface all the cool stuff with a common mistake many make at the beginning of their bushcraft and survival skills journey.
Tinder and the prerequisites 'to keeping a fire going. Tinder is fuel and is necessary for the creation of fire. Simple? Right? Not really. Improper gathering, storage and preparation of tinder can make or break the process. Not all tinder is created equal and understanding that can make your life much easier. There are considerations that you must take into account. They are as follows:
Wet or dry.
Seasoned or green
Hard or soft material
Ease of use
Availability
Wet or dry:
Common sense tells you not to use wet material and to only use dry. However, there are some tips or ways to make wet material dry. some are easy, others take time. And you should always be thinking of the next fire. Wet logs, twigs and dry rotted logs may only be wet on the outside. Simply removing the outer bark or outer layer may reveal perfectly dry material. If you have gathered very fine material such as moss, grasses, twigs and such that are wet, you can dry them out. Sometimes relatively quickly by simply putting them in a dry pocket, laying them out in the sun or hanging them under cover and with good air circulation. They may dry out quicker than you think. This does not only apply to tinder. It is just as important for your smalls, mediums and large tinder as well. NOTE: Your thought process when needing a fire should cover all stages of fire, starting, building it bigger and keeping it going. It is necessary to provide shelter for all of your stored fire materials and maybe even creation of drying racks. Especially in wet environments and if there is a possibility of being in one place for more than several hours. The cost to benefit ratio of building a temporary wood shelter and drying rack can only truly be understood when you are stuck in days upon days of wet weather. There are many considerations when building a storage area and drying rack. While I have, at times created a drying rack directly over a fire. I must caution this application. You must be very careful... You are basically preheating combustibles near open flame...Which can create a rather large, unexpected fire.
Seasoned or green:
Seasoned wood are trees that have been down for some time. The bark may or may not have fallen off. Typically wood that has been cut or blown down but not lying on the ground dries quicker. Bark still on the tree can do one of two things. It may repel the water or, hold it closer to the tree even days after a rain. This can only be verified by actually checking. Cut or peel the bark off and look, touch and smell. Sometimes you can tell just by looking, you may see moisture still trapped between the bark and cambium layer. Touch, take a fingernail or sharp object and scrape or press the tree after removing the bark. If wet, you will feel it be spongy or soft and may see moisture. If dry it will be hard and difficult to press or cut. NOTE: Know your timber, which trees are hardwood, and which are soft wood. A press or cut test is different when checking a soft wood like pine or a hard wood like oak. Seasoned wood will burn much easier, cleaner and hotter than green wood. Green wood are trees that are still alive or recently dead. Avoid green wood unless you are specifically looking for smoke or poor burns. Green wood is easily identifiable by the bark being hard to remove, wet, it may be easier to cut, but will sometimes leave sap on your blade be that axe, knife or saw. It may still have leaves attached either green or dead. When gathering wood keep in mind that you want wood that burns well, and easily. green wood is much harder to work with as far as fire is concerned.
Hard or Soft:
Hard wood can be described in many ways. It is typically more dense than soft. Example would be to cut a piece of Red Oak 3" in diameter 12' long and cut the same length of white pine. Guess which weighs more? If equal moisture content the oak will be heavier. Structurally as a general rule of thumb, hard woods have a tighter composition of cellulose. (That is the structure of the wood, much like muscle tissue). NOTE: Not all hard woods have a tight structure, nor do all soft woods have a "loose" structure. There are always exceptions, Poplar is a hardwood yet maintains a relatively loose structure. Southern white pine (especially old growth) is a soft wood that may have a tight cellulose structure.
Ease of use:
As a whole, ease of use is typically not thought about until you become an experienced outdoorsman. What do I mean by ease of use as it applies to tinder? You need to get the most bang for your effort. By making good decisions before you even step into the woods it will help you more than you could believe. Think about the environment you are about to enter. What terrain will I be covering? If there are hills or mountains, keep in mind that wind will dry tinder that is available much quicker on top of a hill or on the upside of prevailing winds. So, if grasses are a source, try looking there instead of protected valleys and swales. Ease of use of the materials gathered means why gather wet material in a valley when you can get it already dry on top of a hill? Hopefully your travel plan will put you into a position to gather smartly, not by happenstance hoping to find something. If you are in an area that is known for Pine trees, pay attention to the dead ones. You may find fatwood in stumps and the joints where branches meet the trunk. Look for old growth pine forests, you will have a better chance of finding dead or downed pines. NOTE: Grasses are not always the best tinder. most grasses have a protective coating that protects the stem. This coating is hard to ignite, not impossible. But can still be a viable source of tinder.
If you are in an area that is known for high winds, look for the windward side of hills for downed, dead trees and shrubs. You want to find old but not rotten with bark already off. (This saves you time and effort). There is more likelihood of finding more downed trees on this side of hills. The Opussum mentality as proposed by many but noted publicly by Dave Canterbury applies to gathering tinder. Pay attention to all that is around you. As you observe your surroundings, gather what is easy and available. That is the Opussum mentality.
Ease of use incorporates what you gather, the type and size are equally important. Gathering large logs that have to be split into small pencil size tinder is a waste of time and energy. Just gather the sizes you need. Whatever you get from any splitting you do is just a bonus. If you have ever tried to break down Red Oak which is very stringy you will soon realize how much effort it takes to get small tinder. Choose a species that is much easier like Poplar.
Availability:
Wherever you may be, there are certain species of trees, shrubs and grasses that are more prevalent. You may have pine trees but the further north you go the harder it becomes to find abundant fatwood. Instead, you may have more Birch trees which the bark off of is excellent tinder and fire starters. You must use what your geography has, not what you want it to have. Be flexible in your thought process because forests can change from one valley to another. What you think you know might not be accurate throughout your journey. Some tinder sources may surprise you, try different trees, vines, bushes and grasses. Part of the fun is learning what works and what doesn't.
So, if you are still here and reading this, now is what most of you are looking for. What different types of ways to start fires are there?
Friction:
Bow drill
Fireboards
String boards
Hand drills
Plough board
The basic principle of friction fire is rubbing two materials, usually wood but can be bamboo or dried plant stalks together creating a fine dust and increasing the heat generated by faster rotation or similar motion.
Solar:
Magnification (Magnifying glass, Fresnel lens)
Focused reflection (Solar reflectors)
Chemical:
Calcium hypochlorite and brake fluid
Potassium permanganate, acetone, and sulfuric acid
Sodium chlorate, sugar and sulfuric acid
Ammonium nitrate powder, zinc powder and hydrochloric acid
Percussion:
Flint and steel ( Quartz, jasper and agate)
Iron Pyrite
Marcasite
Man made tools that assist in fire starting and extenders.
Ferrocerium rod
Fire pistons
Matches
Bic lighters
Ferro and magnesium combination
There are many products on the market today that help us start a fire. There are just as many if not more products that help mitigate the use of tinder. These are my thoughts on Extenders.
Fire extenders are products that have a very important role in the survival community. The sole purpose of an extender is to assist in creating an adequate fire as quickly and efficiently as possible. As a rule of thumb, five minutes of burn time should provide enough heat to ignite most tinder. Keep in mind that even though you may be using an extender the basic principles of fire making should still be used. Utilize small, medium and large tinder that is dry and only add more and larger tinder when the flames reach above your current tinder. Alot of people believe that extenders such as fire plugs, fire ropes etc. are the savior. They are not. They are an aid, and your expectations of any aid are based upon your actual use and testing of any products. Don't put yourself into a situation where your life depends on a fire extender if you haven't verified its viability. I have personally created and tested thousands of variations of fire extenders. What i have learned is that MOST commercially available products do the same thing. They work, failure is typically due to operator error. Neat packaging and slick ads are meant to sell product not necessarily provide you the best option. As inexpensive as most are it pays to shop around and try different types from different manufacturers. Below is a list of some fire extenders, NOTE: many label their product as fire starters, this simply isn't accurate. You must ignite these products yourself with a tool. Semantics? Maybe, but it is important to know the difference.
Samples of fire starters/ extenders
Fire plugs
Disks or rounds
rope
Cotton balls w/ Vaseline
Lint
Sawdust
Many manufacturers add certain substances to a base material to create starters/extenders, this may be wax and accelerants or any number of petroleum-based products. Most base materials utilize cotton, hemp or jute or fine sawdust. The key to making a great extender is to balance volume of base material with the perfect blend and amount of wax or petroleum products.
Future articles will cover in depth the process of using fire starting tools and extenders.
As always
Keep your paddle wet and your powder dry
J
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