#240926 - 02/11/12 12:30 PM
Re: Starting FIRST fire?
[Re: bigreddog]
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Carpal Tunnel
Registered: 04/28/10
Posts: 3164
Loc: Big Sky Country
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I'm no nOOb but I can't do squat with Mg no matter how I use it. It's the element that makes me feel stupid.
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“I'd rather have questions that cannot be answered than answers that can't be questioned.” —Richard Feynman
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#240930 - 02/11/12 03:23 PM
Re: Starting FIRST fire?
[Re: bacpacjac]
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Journeyman
Registered: 02/22/07
Posts: 80
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I have never had any use for magnesium blocks. IMO they are heavy, and not worth their weight in my pack. Pack a Bic Lighter & a Ferro rod, you'll be much better off.
Cotton balls, lint, jute, are all much lighter than a Magnesium block...
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#240936 - 02/11/12 06:12 PM
Re: Starting FIRST fire?
[Re: bacpacjac]
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Snake_Doctor
Unregistered
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[b][/b]Thanks Bacpacjac. I've long admired and have respected your postings.
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#240937 - 02/11/12 06:13 PM
Re: Starting FIRST fire?
[Re: hikermor]
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Enthusiast
Registered: 09/13/07
Posts: 378
Loc: SE PA
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You can keep a fire going in adverse conditions by building it big, much bigger than it needs to be, shielding the flames with big logs and bark, etc. and working very hard. Here's a quote from John Muir's Travels in Alaska about building a fire in the rain. (Mods, this is in the public domain.) One night when a heavy rainstorm was blowing I unwittingly caused a lot of wondering excitement among the whites as well as the superstitious Indians. Being anxious to see how the Alaska trees behave in storms and hear the songs they sing, I stole quietly away through the gray drenching blast to the hill back of the town, without being observed. Night was falling when I set out and it was pitch dark when I reached the top. The glad, rejoicing storm in glorious voice was singing through the woods, noble compensation for mere body discomfort. But I wanted a fire, a big one, to see as well as hear how the storm and trees were behaving. After long, patient groping I found a little dry punk in a hollow trunk and carefully stored it beside my matchbox and an inch or two of candle in an inside pocket that the rain had not yet reached; then, wiping some dead twigs and whittling them into thin shavings, stored them with the punk. I then made a little conical bark hut about a foot high, and, carefully leaning over it and sheltering it as much as possible from the driving rain, I wiped and stored a lot of dead twigs, lighted the candle, and set it in the hut, carefully added pinches of punk and shavings, and at length got a little blaze, by the light of which I gradually added larger shavings, then twigs all set on end astride the inner flame, making the little hut higher and wider. Soon I had light enough to enable me to select the best dead branches and large sections of bark, which were set on end, gradually increasing the height and corresponding light of the hut hre. A considerable area was thus well lighted, from which I gathered abundance of wood, and kept adding to the fire until it had a strong, hot heart and sent up a pillar of flame thirty or forty feet high, illuminating a wide circle in spite of the rain, and casting a red glare into the flying clouds. Of all the thousands of camp-fires I have elsewhere built none was just like this one, rejoicing in triumphant strength and beauty in the heart of the rain-laden gale. It was wonderful,--the illumined rain and clouds mingled together and the trees glowing against the jet background, the colors of the mossy, lichened trunks with sparkling streams pouring down the furrows of the bark, and the gray-bearded old patriarchs bowing low and chanting in passionate worship!
My fire was in all its glory about midnight, and, having made a bark shed to shelter me from the rain and partially dry my clothing, I had nothing to do but look and listen and join the trees in their hymns and prayers.
Neither the great white heart of the fire nor the quivering enthusiastic flames shooting aloft like auroral lances could be seen from the village on account of the trees in front of it and its being back a tattle way over the brow of the hill; but the light in the clouds made a great show, a portentous sign in the stormy heavens unlike anything ever before seen or heard of in Wrangell. Some wakeful Indians, happening to see it about midnight, in great alarm aroused the Collector of Customs and begged him to go to the missionaries and get them to pray away the frightful omen, and inquired anxiously whether white men had ever seen anything like that sky-fire, which instead of being quenched by the rain was burning brighter and brighter. The Collector said he had heard of such strange fires, and this one he thought might perhaps be what the white man called a "volcano, or an ignis fatuus." When Mr. Young was called from his bed to pray, he, too, confoundedly astonished and at a loss for any sort of explanation, confessed that he had never seen anything like it in the sky or anywhere else in such cold wet weather, but that it was probably some sort of spontaneous combustion "that the white man called St. Elmo's fire, or Will-of-the-wisp." These explanations, though not convincingly clear, perhaps served to veil their own astonishment and in some measure to diminish the superstitious fears of the natives; but from what I heard, the few whites who happened to see the strange light wondered about as wildly as the Indians.
I have enjoyed thousands of camp-fires in all sorts of weather and places, warm-hearted, short-flamed, friendly little beauties glowing in the dark on open spots in high Sierra gardens, daisies and lilies circled about them, gazing like enchanted children; and large fires in silver fir forests, with spires of flame towering like the trees about them, and sending up multitudes of starry sparks to enrich the sky; and still greater fires on the mountains in winter, changing camp climate to summer, and making the frosty snow look like beds of white flowers, and oftentimes mingling their swarms of swift-flying sparks with falling snow-crystals when the clouds were in bloom. But this Wrangell camp-fire, my first in Alaska, I shall always remember for its triumphant storm-defying grandeur, and the wondrous beauty of the psalm-singing, lichen-painted trees which it brought to light.
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#240938 - 02/11/12 06:20 PM
Re: Starting FIRST fire?
[Re: Paul810]
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Snake_Doctor
Unregistered
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Never really had a problem with MG. I pre-shave some into a piece of foil and keep it in the bottom of my match case. Also I use it to start fires in nice weather, saving my matches and lighter for more demanding conditions. For wet conditions the old paper shot shell with a candle inside will dry out kindling FAST! And dry wood can normally be found by splitting wet wood.
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#240974 - 02/12/12 12:25 PM
Re: Starting FIRST fire?
[Re: CANOEDOGS]
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Old Hand
Registered: 01/28/10
Posts: 1174
Loc: MN, Land O' Lakes & Rivers ...
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Byrd..i swear by that fire paste,every spring a buy a new tube and take it with me on the canoe trips.i like it because you can use a dab or a big blob depending on how much starting you need.with a heap of birch bark a bit on a edge helps things along fast.with the dry, but wet from the rain,black spruce twigs and branches a nice big squeeze of this stuff will get a fire going.it works great to pre-heat stoves.it's fast to use,no scraping or fooling with gizmos just the touch of a match will do it.i don't take a sparkier for everyday use so i don't know about that.i was using the Army heat tabs but a hold in the foil and they went to dust.other tabs were burning uselessly after the fire was going and wasted.i like candle stubs if it looks like it's going to be a really hard start but the fire paste gets 90% of the use.
by the way i'm in for the BW in early June this year.i hope i don't have the storms i had last year and can have a fire rather than huddle in the shelter in every bit of clothes i have. I went to the local Fleet Farm yesterday, and they were out of Fire Paste. It's 6:00AM here and pretty cold this morning at 10F and I'm loading up on coffee and then heading into the woods with my daypack in an hour. I wanted to try the paste to prime my alcohol stove and to light some wet tinder (if I can even find any wet tinder). The state weather forecasters are starting to rumble about drought this spring. They say the soil is the dryest in 30 years. If that keeps up, we will not be able to light campfires or even use stoves in the northwoods. Theres a lot of timber blow downs all over the state, and the huge Pagami Creek fire last fall has everyone spooked.
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The man got the powr but the byrd got the wyng
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