Sometimes I’m amazed at how a skill I take for granted is completely missing in other people, even those who profess proficiency in outdoor skills.

I grew up around fire. I was starting bonfires for weekend campouts with my family years before I joined the boy scouts. I mean real fires, not just lighting cheater fluid. It’s almost second nature to me, I hardly ever think about it. I just go out, and do what I need to do to start a fire. This is why it never occurred to me that others might be lacking in the whole “fire” concept.

Last night, my room mates and I took part in a ceremonial book burning to celebrate the end of the semester. I had lit the tinder in a grill out in the courtyard, and was just starting to feed it, when my roommate began stacking thick text books in the grill. Needless to say, it completely smothered the fire. After smothering it, my roommates attempted to relight it by holding a match up to a book laying flat. I don’t know if you’ve tried burning books before, but this is not the way to do it.

Holding a match to a book is only slightly better than holding the match up to a log. Unless the fire is already hot enough to burn fuel sized pieces, you’re never going to ignite a book as is. You need to tear the book up into smaller kindling size pieces or at least place the book upright and feather the pages so they burn separately. Other wise you just get a lot of surface burn without igniting the book itself.


My roommates couldn’t seem to understand that fires shouldn’t be completely smothered by fuel, that if you are using fuel, you need to build the fire up before it will ignite, and that big, thick, dense materials don’t ignite instantly. They seemed to have no familiarity with fire at all.

I’m wary of fire. I know if mistreated it can be quite dangerous, even deadly. But I’m no more afraid of it than I am of a fork, knife, or bathroom tub. I like fire. I enjoy its company. It just seems like a lot of people are just downright scared of fire, and don’t like the idea of being anywhere near it, if they don’t need to be.