Campfires can be a fun and rewarding way to stay warm, cook food and provide a place for social gathering. Follow these simple steps to building a safe campfire.
1. Gather Fuel. There are 3 basic types of wood/ fuel that are needed to build a fire: kindling, sticks and large pieces of wood.
KINDLING is the foundation required to build any fire. kindling is any lightweight material that will burn quickly and ignite larger materials. Kindling is best made of a mixture of twigs, tiny sticks, slivers of shaved wood, dried leaves or paper, birch bark, dried grass, and dried pine needles. If these are in short supply you’ll also find the fluff in your pockets useful also.
Use the small sticks to form a mini tepee or framed structure where you can light and get the fire started.
STICKS will be used to hold your fire structure together and light even larger pieces of wood. Properly aligning sticks will allow oxygen into your fire. Sticks used should be 1-2 inches in diameter, and broken to fit inside the fire pit. It’s important that sticks are dry and never taken from living, upright trees.
LARGE PIECES or chunks of wood will be added to the fire last. Chunks should be dry and no more than 3-feet in length. Large chunks of wood should always be placed inside the fire ring or pit.
2. Put 2 handfuls of kindling into a small pile. You can compact the pile into one, softball sized ball. The ball should be placed in the center of the fire pit or fire ring.
3. Using your small sticks of kindling, build a small tepee around the kindling ball. Align your sticks at a 45-degree angle to the ground, making certain to leave some gaps in the tepee to allow oxygen to circulate inside the tepee.
4. Using your medium sized sticks, form a cabin styled structure around your tepee. Do this by placing 2 sticks on the ground outside the tepee, parallel to each other. Form a square by adding another 2 sticks. Repeat, until your cabin structure is 5-6 layers high. Note: Make sure the ends of your cabin overlap, so that your structure stays in place, and will continue to ignite larger pieces of wood.
5. Add the larger pieces of wood. Place several nice sized pieces of wood on two sides of the cabin you have just build. Now, rest two or three tiny branches or sticks on top of your cabin that touch both the cabin foundation and the large chunks of wood you have just added. Be careful not to add to many sticks to the top of the cabin or air will not be able to circulate, and your fire will die out on its own.
6. Light your fire. Light a match and place it in between one of the gaps of the tepee structure. If your fire lights correctly, it should begin burning the kindling first, spread to your cabin within a few moments, and then, ignite the larger pieces of wood, as well. You can encourage “wet fires” or hard to light fires by adding a few more pieces of kindling and sticks to the fire as it continues the ignition process. Blowing gently around the base of the fire will also help to get past the kindling stage.