Good idea! <img src="images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Also Important in both Fire Building and Maintainance, is the Matter of the Wood's Temperature, -and also the Matter of How Wet or Dry the Wood is, (of course!). ( I'm Speaking on the Difference between Rain Soaked Wood and Ground, vs What you might Find About in the Midst of a Drought. Not Solely about whether the Wood itself is Green or Seasoned.)

I Know from Personal Experience that there can be Quite a Difference between Trying to Start / Maintain with "Cold Wood", -I Mean "Winter Cold Wood", and Trying to Do so with "Room Temperature" or "Hot Weather Wood".

The Warmer and / or Dryer the Wood, -the Better! Naturally and Of Course.

The Same of course can be said for Seasoned / Dried vs Green Wood.

It's Not Only a Matter of the Above Line as One of you has Mentioned, -Nor Only of TG's Excellent Point on the Type or Species of Wood. Nor of the Excellent Horizontal Fire Lay Suggestions here.

Other Factors Apply as Well, -Two of which I've mentioned.

Fire Building and Maintainance is at Least as Much of an Art, -as it is a System or Science!

I've Often Enuff have been Puzzled somewhat, -Out There in the Woods, -on How a Seemingly "Taking/Takeable" Fire, -Can Rapidly Enuf Start Petering Out and Dying on you!

Far from Always now! But certainly Sometimes!

I Know from Experience, -that this is Far More Likely to Happen to me, -With "Cold" or "Damp" Wood! And I'm Talking of even "Fog Damp"! When the Tinder, Kindling, or Fuel, is Often NOT Wet or Damp to the Touch!

It Indeed Sometimes can be Quite an Art, Science, and Challenge! And This is from One who's Built Many a Roaring / Long Lasting Fire. [color:"black"] [/color] [email]JoshE[/email]

I hate to keep resurrecting (my own) dead threads, but I went solo-camping this weekend and tried, once again, to build a fire and keep it going.

This time I hiked to a back-country campground, spent two nights there, then hiked back. My initial intent was to carry a small sack of pre-cut firewood for 8 kilometers, but after about 500 metres I realised this was a fool's folly, so I "donated" the firewood to an existing stack at the trailhead picnic site and continued on.

I did get a decent fire going for about a half-hour, using found deadwood from the surrounding forest, but the largest log (about 5 inches diameter) simply would not sustain combustion once the smaller pieces burned out. However, I had an epiphany while watching it.

It occurred to me that what I am missing is to have two large logs, of approximately equal thickness and composition (e.g., one long log broken into two smaller ones) side by side, and with an air gap underneath. If you can get the logs burning on the inside of the gap between them, then you would create a "chimney effect" - as the hot air from the fire rises between the two logs, it sucks air in from underneath. The narrower the gap between the two logs, the faster the air will travel; the faster the air travels, the hotter the fire will burn. (You would get the same effect from a single log that was split or cracked, if you could get the wood on the inside of the crack burning.)

Most likely, this is just so obvious that nobody thought it needed pointing out. Or maybe I just have a scientific mind and need to put something into the context of a physics experiment before I can understand it.

Anyway, I'm going back out there this weekend (in a van, not on foot) so I'm going to bring along a supply of firewood and test my theory. Will let you all know if I succeed. <img src="images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

P.S. The Wilderness First Aid course was cancelled due to lack of interest. <img src="images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

<< Most likely, this is just so obvious that nobody thought it needed pointing out. >>

<img src="images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> That is correct, and I apologize for not realizing that you weren't doing that!

The spacing varies with size of logs, amount of coals underneath, specie of wood, moisture content, etc - but it's all fairly obvious if you tend the fire.

Sheesh! I wonder sometimes how much time we could save if we could simply get together to show/try things instead of writing back and forth in more or less real time...

Since you hypothesized this all on your own, give yourself credit for figuring it out.

Regards,

Tom

yeah i agree showing is alot easier then typing it on here.
as for me ive never been camping or built a "real" campfire.

so alot of this fire making info is helpful to me, but if anyone had a web page to take pics of the building process step by step then that would help other new folks.

A lot of people are offended by the ".... For Dummies" books, but I bought the very first one ever produced ("Automobile Repair for Dummies"). I didn't grow up tinkering with car engines (my parents were schoolteachers, I grew up reading books) and when I tried to teach myself, I found that all books on automotive mechanics were written with the assumption that anyone reading it would know what a carburetor looked like, or how to identify a manifold, etc. AR For Dummies was written by a woman, in the days when a female mechanic was considered not just a curiosity, but an abnormality. <img src="images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" /> She had had to learn everything about her car engine from scratch, so when she wrote a book about it, she didn't worry about "talking down" to the reader.

Technical writing is a real challenge; it's incredibly difficult for most experts to put themselves in the position of someone who knows absolutely nothing about the subject.

Fortunately for me, I have a "scientific" mind - I'm generally not satisfied to know how something works, I want to know *why* it works that way.

Chemically treated "Instant" firelogs probably contribute to a generation of people who don't realise that a single large log won't continue to burn by itself, no matter how hot you get it.

By the way, I just signed up for a 7-day course with Mors Kochanski in Wildwood, Alberta, in July. Hopefully, I'll know how to build a decent campfire before I head up there; but if not, I'm certain I'll know how to build one when I head back <img src="images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

I couple things I find useful:

* Around here, wood is always wet. Use big pieces as structure. Use your small starter fire to help dry out the big pieces. By the time your're ready for big pieces they are drier for having been exposed to your small fire.

* Building directly on the ground surface is not an impediment vs a fireplace grill; I turn my grill upside down in my fireplace so that there's only a cm or two of space under the fire.

* I try to keep the flames from going straight up. I figure that the longer I keep them around, the more warmth I receive. So, I usually build the structure like a maze where the flames need to wend up through and around multiple pieces of wood.