We have been talking about fire starters. So I thought this might be appropriate.

The Quest for Fire
By Rich “Raspy” Shawver

Fire is one of the most important tools you can have. Whether it is your comfortable home, a secluded retreat or wandering the woods au natural. Your comfort, even your survivability could come down to your ability to make fire. Fire provides warmth when it is cold. Light to hold back the night. Fire can be a friend and comfort in difficult times. It is a way to cook and preserve your meals. It is a means to fashion other tools. The ability to purify the water you drink. And fire can be so much more. The ability to create and control fire on demand was a major factor in man’s dominance of other creatures. It also permitted the expansion into less hospitable regions of the earth. Fire can be a great comfort to the soul on long dark lonely nights. Besides, it’s fun to sit around a campfire.

To create fire, first you need some means of starting the process. Then you require something to burn. Finally you have to put thing together correctly or it isn’t going to work. This is not rocket science it is very simple once you see how it is done.

Tools for igniting the fire.
At the primitive end of the scale there is fire by friction. This relies on the fact that if two or more items are rubbed together heat is produced. If the proper materials are used with the correct technique this heat can be encouraged to progress from a faint smoldering into a roaring blaze. There are a bunch of different styles that work on this principle. The fire saw, hand and bow drill or fire plow are the most known methods. Long before Mr. Diesel created his engine and his name was associated the idea of compression used to generate heat and fire. Primitive people were using fire pistons to start fires. Many modern sportsman and others say why bother with these methods. I have all kinds of modern tools to start fires. Well these other methods can fail, run out or be unavailable. It is only sensible to learn and practice them as an emergency backup. Knowledge is never a waste and weighs nothing.

Matches: Paper, regular stick, strike anywhere and lifeboat matches, the last two being the better choices. Their problem is that they are very susceptible to moisture. They also deteriorate with age. Finally they are one shot devices other methods require far less bulk for the same number of lights.

Solar: Two methods. A highly polished curved surface can focus the sun’s rays into a spot that can get hot enough to start a fire. Years ago I had, and probably still do somewhere, a novelty gadget called a solar cigarette lighter. It was a highly polished curved piece of metal about the size of a hand with a flip up fork. To use you positioned the fork, stuck a cigarette in the fork, aimed the assembly at the sun so the focused on the tip. On a bright sunny day in about 20 or 30 seconds it would begin to smoke. Not ideal but it did work. The other is magnification. Fortunately the large heavy glass magnifier is no longer needed. There are plastic Fresnel lenses the size of a credit card that can be tucked into your wallet or other small spaces and the weigh next to nothing. Their biggest downfall is they don’t work without the sun shining. But they can furthermore magnify small print for tired old eyes.

Old Time Flint and steel: An acceptable method but due to the limited amount and duration of the sparks produced requires much better quality of tinder such as char cloth. But if you can find a piece of steel and a suitable rock you have the means to make fire.

Modern “Flint” and Steel: These composite rods generate a profusion of sparks than are much hotter with a much greater duration. This allows for less perfect tinder requirements. These come in several forms. One is the Gerber Strike Force, which consist of a striker and rod in a single package. Some consist of a rod with a separate striker. Others combine the rod partially wrapped in magnesium with a separate striker. The some of the magnesium being scraped off and piled to ignited by the spark to extend the burn time and temperature. These come in several sizes. Small rods wrapped with a limited amount of magnesium that is good in small personal kits. Others than range up to the ones found often in general merchandise stores that are 3 to 4 inches long and almost an inch wide. One of the biggest complaints most people have is trying to keep the magnesium shavings together when carving them off the stick so that you can use them to start a fire. Here is a trick that serves double duty. Take some pieces of waxed paper and fold them up either in a kit or wallet. The shavings can be collected in the waxed paper. The paper will burn adding more fire to start the kindling. Even without the magnesium shavings the waxed paper can act as a stand alone thus terming it a double duty item.

The venerable Zippo or other brands are great in the pocket for daily use but serve poorly when included in kits. The reason is they rely on a flammable fuel that evaporates. Because of this they need refilling on a regular basis even if they are not used. If you pull one out of a kit after even a short space of time they don’t work until refueled. I have heard some people trying to wrap them in various materials to minimize this with some success of a limited nature. But I still would not trust it because if reduced to using it my life may depend upon it and that is to big of a risk on something that iffy. If one is included in a kit you will also need to bring along a can of lighter fluid. Although most lighters of this kind will work using gasoline instead of regular fluid. I don’t know about diesel but would think it would be hard to ignite. I do however know that alcohol will work. A friend used unscented rubbing alcohol in his a long time ago. Every time he used it smelt like someone was drinking beer. In high school this caused a fair stir amount the PTB’s. Back then smoking was not as big a deal as now. I understand that if you wrap the lighter in several layers of saran wrap it will reduce the rate of the evaporation. How well this does or how long it will lasts I have no idea.

There are some products called fire sticks, fire starters or whatever the brand name is. These are made of sawdust, paraffin and some other things compressed into sticks. They have a head made like a match head. When struck on a surface like that on the side of a matchbox. These are in essence a super sized match that burns several minutes. They only problem other than the obvious water susceptibility is that they are so large that more than one or two would only fit in even the biggest kits. I believe they were inspired by a homemade affair called a firebug. Someone decided to make a commercial product from this idea. The firebug is simple to make. Take 6 or 7 strike anywhere matches and tie into a bundle. Then dip the stick portion of the bundle several times to well saturate the wood up almost to the head. Then reverse and do a quick dip to coat the heads. To use, scrape the covering on the heads and strike on a rough surface. They are marginally better than their commercial cousins are as they are waterproof and need no special striking surface. They do have some problems. The paraffin will eventually degrade the match heads requiring them to be replaced on a regular basis. If stored in a hot environment such as a car in the summer sun the paraffin will melt. The guy that started the firebug probably had some paraffin coated matches that melted into a single blob this way. He tried several together because of the frustration of separating them and liked the result.

What is now the gold standard for starting fires the butane lighter. They contain thousands of lights in a package about the size of a dozen or so matches. They come in 2 essential forms. There are the high end refillable ones and the cheap disposables. There are likewise 2 styles of ignition the same basic flint with a wheel striker and the newer electronic sparker. The electronic ones generate a small electrical arc by using a crystal that produces a current when squeezed. This is done using a spring-loaded hammer that strikes the crystal. When you push down upon the thumb button it opens the gas valve depresses and releases the hammer to hit the crystal the resultant arc ignites the gas you have a flame. They are much easier on the thumb than the wheel models. Unfortunately this arc is so small that it requires something highly flammable like the butane or gasoline vapors to light. It would not work on most other tinders. I have experimented with this and have had no luck although there might be something that it would work on.

For daily use the refillable model is a reasonable choice. You can have a couple of refill canisters around the home or toss some into a car kit. With these the electronic igniter is the best choice. That is because it will last almost indefinitely unlike a flint that needs to be replaced. For kit use the prime pick is the disposable flint fired model. Because they are cheap you can scatter a handful around various parts of you kits and forget them. The reason to choose the flint style is that the flint will generally out last the gas supply. After the gas is used up the metal flame shield can be removed. This can then be used much the same as flint and steel. While it doesn’t produce a torrent of sparks they are sufficient to ignite any tinder that old-fashioned flint and steel would. There are even some that come in half size or mini that fit well in pocket kits.

That is not to say they do not have problems. That is why you need to have backups just in case. First water but then again so does most of the others. In the case of butane lighters it does not affect the fuel but if the flint gets wet it stops sparking. Unless it is so cold that the water freezes up and jams the mechanism a few shakes, blow into it a few times to drive even more out then with a couple of spins of the sparking wheel you are usually back in business. Next is cold as the temperature drops the butane begins to fail to vaporize meaning no gas to ignite. This can be overcome by placing the lighter next to the body where body heat will keep it warm. This will require it to be kept in storage until just before it is used so that it doesn’t have a chance to cool down. Many say that they are not good in kits because they leak and will be useless when they are most needed. While it may be true in a small percentage of cases in the cheapest of these in most cases this is more operator error than a design fault. This problem comes from improper packing. What happens is that when packing especially in smaller kits the gas valve lever gets depressed when trying to cram the maximum amount of stuff into the minimum amount of space. If care is taken so that nothing contacts the release lever or thumb switch the leakage problem is rarely a factor. In fact I have had to come back and add this. I just had to search my heavy winter coat looking for something. I remembered an odd pocket. At least 5 or 6 years ago and more probably something like 9 or 10 years I stuffed a Bic lighter in the pocket as a cold weather backup. The intent was to forget about it so it would available for an emergency. Well I did forget it. During the search I found it. Guess what? It still works fine. It is back in the pocket if I ever need it. So that should dispel the theory that they will leak away.

Then there is the ultimate fire starter. Forget tinder even small sticks this thing supplies it’s own. It will even dry out and light soaking wet wood. What is this miracle of technology? It is the road flare. Some of the small ones last 5 minutes. The average is about 15. Some of the real big ones go 30. These things will start a fire in a raging blizzard. Because of their’ size you probably won’t carry very many so save them for a real emergency situation.

Steel wool is a real toss up into what category it fits into. Is it a fire lighter, tinder or both? When a current from a battery is passed through fine steel wool it generates heat. The result is a very intense coal that can light other material. The steel wool that works best is 0000 grade. This can normally found in hardware stores or places dealing with woodworking. It is used to polish or ultra smooth sanding of wood. Typically the way that this is demonstrated is with a flashlight. The end cap is removed and the steel wool makes contact the way the end cap does. On metal lights like the Maglite use the case to conduct the electricity. On plastic ones there is a metal strip that runs the length. P.S. It works a whole lot better if you turn the flashlight on to complete the circuit. Steel wool can also act as tinder as it will catch and perpetuate a spark from both styles of flint. I didn’t think to include steel wool until about ¾ of the way complete with this article. Earlier I said that I was never able to get any tinder to ignite using the spark of an electronic lighter. And to be honest until writing this part about steel wool I never thought to try it. Thinking how it reacts I can see the possibility that it may work. When the opportunity presents itself I might have to try it and see.

OK, you have a way to produce a flame. The next thing you need is something to get the fire burning. Since you cannot start with logs you have to start small and work your way up in size as the fire establishes itself. The first level of this process is called tinder. This can be natural material, some commercial product or a homemade substance. The fineness and ability to catch and hold a light that is needed depends upon the ignition source. Obviously it will take something easier to ignite when using flint and steel or primitive methods than it will with a lighter.

Commercial tinders: There are the so-called “wet” tinders like the one used with the Gerber Strike Force. What these look like is cotton balls coated in paraffin squeezed into cubes. I’m sure the have some other proprietary chemical mix that makes them ignite easier. Then there are the dry tinders that are bundles of fluff chemically treated to catch a spark. Fire paste or fire ribbon these toothpaste tubes full of flammable goo. Often used by backpackers as a preheater for their stoves in cold weather. It sounds like it is something like contact cement or rubber glue, both of which are highly flammable. Along with plastic model cement could be used as a homegrown substitute. I’m sure the actual product is somewhat different but not all that much. From those that have used it the biggest strike against it is the tubes are so large that they are almost not worth the hassle.

Homegrown tinders: Take cotton balls or if you are more frugal dryer lint and liberally coat with petroleum jelly. When using dryer lint much depends upon what kind of clothing is run through the dryer. If the majority of the cloths are made of cotton the lint works well. If on the other hand most of the clothing is wool the resultant lint may not be usable. Wool has a tendency to not catch sparks very well and even when it does catch a spark it does not burn well which is one reason it make such good outdoor clothing. When fluffed out they will catch a spark and burn fairly hot for a little while. The same thing can be done by substitute paraffin for the jelly. These act like a small candle. Speaking of candles, they are a form of tinder as they hold a flame longer to spread the fire to larger material. Some experts tout those short plumbers candles, others those tea candles used as warmers in fancy restaurants and still more say birthday candles for their small size to fit one in a pocket kit. Of late many have been repeating the idea of using a trick birthday candle. The idea is they cannot be blown out. The idea has some merit but it isn’t as strong as it seems on the surface. If you read the instructions on the packets the say the candle must remain lit for 30 seconds before the relight feature will reliably work. If you have constructed the fire properly it will be well on its way before the 30 seconds. I have experimented with them and in the first 10 or 15 seconds they will blow out and not start back up just like a regular birthday candle. After that it gets iffy. Up into the 20 to 25 second range the odds run about 50-50. Sometimes they do sometimes they don’t Over 30 seconds or so they usually act as advertised. With this in mind you have to decide if the extra expense is worth it. As they are not that costly the extra confidence they might inspire might be worth it. All candles will go out if hit with water. Then again the wood can be doused with lighter fluid or gasoline and set on fire. I have heard that if you cut up Presto logs those fake logs for the fireplace the chunks make decent fire starters. Char cloth is cotton cloth that is baked until black and almost burned up. It is one of the better items to catch a spark from traditional flint and steel. This smoldering ember can then be blown into a flame. There are others and if you have another favorite by all means use it.

Natural tinders: These are finely shredded splinters, barks, some mosses and a couple of funguses that can catch sparks or flames to get the fire going. This topic has been covered in every survival manual and all over the web much better than I could. So I will not go into depth.

Here is something that I include in items that are odd additions to a kit. It is the perfect knife that is held precisely at the right angle to shave wood to produce intermediate tinder. This is tinder that will light with a flame but not a spark. But the shower of sparks from a fire steel will. It should even pass the airport security test. Well I’ll stop teasing you this device is a common ordinary pencil sharpener. Once you stop laughing think about it. By its very design it will take a stick roughly the size of a pencil and with a few twists of the wrist produce piles of fine wood shavings. Who’s curved nature will fabricate a loose bundle that will readily light and it will have plenty of airflow to help it burn. And what airport screener would look twice at such a common item let alone classify it as a weapon. Thinking about this fact you might want to carry 2 of them. One to produce tinder while the other can be smash. This would give you a reasonably sharp blade about an inch long. While it wouldn’t be much it could be clamped in a split stick giving you a cutting implement of sorts to perform assorted chores. It won’t replace a good knife but in this day and age if you travel by air it is better than nothing.

Time to build the fire structure or in the terminology commonly used lay the fire. To work a fire needs 3 things. Fuel or something to burn in most cases this is wood. Heat that is what I have been talking about above how to generate it to get things started. Air, actually the oxygen in the air but air will do. The air portion is where most beginners fail. The structure must be loosely built so that air can get in to the fire to keep it going. The other mistake is putting too big of pieces and to much wood on to quickly. First this cuts off the air supply and smothers the fire. It also dissipates the heat in what is burning to the point it is not hot enough. It drops below the combustion point of the wood. You need to give it room to breath and feed it slowly so as not to choke it to death. Newborn fires are delicate creatures so treat them gently. Give it a chance to grow strong so that it can fend for itself.

There are two types of fire you may need to build. First is the normal camping or hearth fire. The second is a hasty fire. The hasty fire is the fire you build when in cold weather you have fallen into the creek or some such disaster and need or face hypothermia. Most experts say you should gather all the wood you will need for the entire night before starting the fire. Normally this is the way to go. But when faced with the need of the hasty fire the time may not available. You should gather at least an hour’s worth. This will give you some time to warm up and some time to gather more fuel. One rule when gathering wood in sloped country is if it is at all possible gather your fuel from above the level of you campsite rather than from below. It is a simple matter of gravity. Bring it down to the camp when gravity is working for you is a lot easier than fighting it bring the stuff up hill. One of the problems for someone new to this is how much is enough to last the night. Gather how much you think will be enough. Then double the size of the pile. Now before you rest or start the fire double the size again and add a couple more armloads to be sure. If you gathered too much no real harm done. But it is a royal PITA to be wandering around the woods at O dark thirty trying to juggle a flashlight or a feeble makeshift torch trying to gather fuel for you dying fire. Not really the best environment for health or safety of your precious skin.

There are 4 ways to manage a fire. The first is the bonfire. These are great for large groups at a summer camp or party. Many hands make the gathering of the huge amounts of wood necessary easy to gather. The second is the normal fire most people build. Generally these fires are much bigger than really necessary. As group size increases the fire usually grows accordingly approaching the bonfire size. Most are very wasteful that is why you have to gather so much wood. A good way to tell it is if a fire is getting too big is how far away you need to be without being too hot. The third way is the best method. Build a small fire and snuggle up close. If you are getting singed by the flames and still cold then maybe you can make it a little bigger. Such a fire should fit about 3 or 4 people. If your group is larger build more fires not bigger ones. Several small fires will use much less wood than one monster blaze. But 2 fires will use twice as much wood. All too true 2 small fires will use twice as much as one small one. But look at what happens. The 2 small fires will accommodate 8 people. Just the need to fit 8 people around one fire will force everyone to sit farther away, as each body requires space in the ring. Correspondingly the fire will need to heat this empty space to reach comfortable levels out where the people are. This will require a fire that is 4 or more time bigger. Hence it uses a minimum of twice the wood of the 2 smaller fires for the same number of people. One of the reasons most people build fires too big is the Hollywierd factor. In movies and TV they always show a big fire with leaping flames. This makes a great visual on camera. What you really need is a good bed of coals with only a few flames for heat or other work expected of a fire. The fourth management technique is holding a fire overnight. This is the same regardless of type or size of the original fire. The terminology of this is called banking. What this is to intentionally smother or cut off most of the oxygen from the fire. You don’t want to cut it off entirely only to reduce it so that the fire burns more slowly and consumes less wood. You want the fire to smolder not burn freely. The only real way to get this right is to practice it. You start with a well-established bed of coals and put something on it. Placing a couple of large logs on the fire commonly does this. This lower level of fire will produce heat for an extended period of time. Then in the morning the partially burned logs are spread apart allowing increased airflow. A few smaller pieces of wood, a little encouragement and your fire is a going concern again.

The different wood sizes you will be dealing with. Tinder has already been discussed. The next size up is kindling. This is a small splinter about the size of a toothpick up to about the size of half a pencil. One of the best woods for kindling is fat wood. To find this is to locate an old dead pine stump. The heartwood of these stumps is saturated with crystallized pitch. Splinters of this wood light very easily and burn like a blowtorch. For this wood should be broken up so that it has sharp rather than rounded edges. Sharp edges catch quicker than rounded ones. There is one exception to this rule. That is the fuzz stick. Using a knife to slice off curls can form kindling. If you start forming these curls but do not cut them completely from the stick this forms a fuzz stick. It is called a fuzz stick because with a number of these curls covering most of it gives it a fuzzy appearance. The next layer or stage up in size is about pencil up to ½ or ¾ inch in size. The final size for a working fire is the 1, 2 and 3 inch sticks. Anything larger should be either split or reserved for banking the fire. One reason for this is the work involved in making it fire sized for length. Wood doesn’t come in lengths convenient for your fire. It will therefore need to be shortened to fit. You can chop it with an axe. Slice it with a saw. Or use the easiest method of all breaking. You can put it in the fork of a tree and use leverage to snap it. Lean it against a log and stomp on it. Break it over your knee. Or simply bash it against something. If you wood gets much bigger than 3 inches breaking will become progressively harder until it can’t be done.

Splitting wood is where axes and hatchets really shine in woods work. You can also do this with a large knife by driving it thru the wood with a baton. What’s a baton? It is nothing more than a stick used to hit the back of the knife to drive it. If you are in a situation where you don’t have access to any tools to accomplish your splitting there is a primitive but very labor intensive way to do this. First find a rock with a reasonably sharp edge. The sharper and narrow along its edge is the easier the work will be. This rock can act as a wedge. You can then use another rock or chunk of wood to either drive the wedge rock into the wood or drive the wood onto the wedge rock. It is better to place the wedge rock on the ground and drive the wood because doing it the other way the impacts will tend to break the object being driven or hit. Since you are going to burn the wood bashing it up a bit won’t hurt anything. Besides that sharp edge might be on a rock that is far too big to handle. Breaking a good wedge rock could be a real bummer. If none are available you can manufacture a sharp edge by smashing on a rock with another. Think of it like flint knapping on the jumbo economy sized scale.

Just a short word on fire safety. First you want to lay your fire on bare soil not organic matter that can burn. Second avoid building a fire under overhanging limbs. Third do not leave a fire totally unattended. This doesn’t mean you have to constantly hover over the fire but you do want to keep an eye on it. In all these cases the problem is to prevent the fire from spreading out of control. Becoming a piece of kindling in the middle of a forest fire that you started might have the tendency of ruining your day.

Another reason for splitting wood is the weather. During wet weather the potential supply will be wet. Unless the wood is green or submerged in water for a long time the inner wood will be dry. Splitting even smaller sticks is a way to reach this dry wood and to make some of the smaller sizes. If the weather is wet the ground will be also. You might need some method to protect your fledgling fire from the wet ground. The way to do this is to lay down some small sticks to form a platform to build the fire upon. These sticks will eventually burn and become part of the fire but after the fire is established enough that the dampness of the soil will have little effect. The same concept is a technique used when building a fire on a deep snow pack. This is used where the snow is so deep that it is impractical or approaching impossible to dig to the ground. The platform is built from logs as large as possible. This is one case where you might want to use green wood, as it will burn through more slowly. You will be able to have a fire that lasts several hours before it burns through the platform or the heat melts enough snow that the fire will sink too low into the snow.

How wet can your wood be and still work? That depends upon the size and stage the fire is in. The way water puts out a fire is by removing the heat. When water is exposed to heat it converts from water into steam. This requires energy. When water is put on a fire this conversion draws heat from the fuel. If it draws enough heat it drops the temperature of the wood to a point below the combustion point of the wood. If it is below this point the fire goes out. That is why pouring a couple of buckets of water on your campfire will put it out. Once a fire is well established it usually has enough energy that wet wood can be placed on a fire with little effect. Tinder especially tinder that is using a method that is not a direct flame has to be completely dry. The use of a spark or a coal has barely enough energy to be encouraged into a flame to over come the presents of any water. With a direct flame if it is large enough or lasts long enough it can dry the tinder out to the point where it will light. As the fire grows more robust it will generate enough heat to deal with progressively more moisture in the wood. So as larger pieces of wood are added to the fire greater amounts of dampness can within reason be tolerated.

I can hear the voices saying all right already enough. When is this guy going to build a fire and set match to wood I’m freezing to death and it is getting dark? Ok, let’s get the show on the road.

You have selected a spot, scrapped to bare earth and built a platform if it is needed. The first thing you need to decide is how you are going to light the tinder. If using a direct flame source put your tinder in the center of the area and start building around it. If using most other methods that are more energetic you will need to take the tinder to the source. Trying these methods with the tinder in the fire structure they will tend to knock everything down. Take the kindling and build an open teepee like structure around the tinder or where the tinder will end up. This is not an art project or major construction it is a cone shaped pile of twigs. No big deal. You want to stack the sticks loosely to allow good airflow with an opening in one side to either reach the tinder with a flame or to put the lit tinder into the structure. Here is where the hasty fire and a normal fire part company.

With a hasty fire time is of the essence. You want as much heat as quickly as possible. So you light it now. As the fire grows you feed it with progressively larger pieces of wood. Until you have the size of fire you want. By doing it this way you get a small but growing amount of heat quickly.

In a normal fire you keep building. Larger concentric cone shaped loose stacks with wood of ever increasing size. As heat rises fires burn upward. By doing this as the fire consumes each stack it heats and ignites each group in turn automatically feeding the fire. Eventually each teepee will collapse finally forming a bed of coals. But you will have to feed the largest wood once the fire is established.

The tinder is formed into a bowl shaped ball of fluff. You want plenty of air circulation. Think of it in appearance of a small bird’s nest. You catch a coal or spark and blow gently for more air until it bursts into flame then put it through the opening into the center of the fire structure. Or you reach you flame source into the stack and light the tinder. In both cases you then continue to blow on the fire to increase the airflow making the fire grow. I said you blow gently. You are not the big bad wolf trying to blow down the little pig’s house of sticks. You don’t want puff like you are blowing out a birthday candle. You want to make the fire grow not put it out.

Here is an accessory that is not normally thought of when it comes to fire building. Some kits have a length of surgical rubber tubing in them. The first thought is it is there to make a sling shot. But it can do so much more. It can be used to launch arrows. Supply the power source for improvised spring up traps. It can act as a straw to drink from a seep that you cannot reach or to draw water from a solar still without having to take the thing apart. But here we are talking about fire building. You can blow through it to supply a stream of air to encourage the fire. The first advantage is that instead of sticking your ear in the dirt singeing your eyebrows with your backside pointing at the sky a very undignified and uncomfortable position. You are upright with the tube reaching to the base of the fire. The tube also produces a very concentrated stream of air that is easily directed exactly where it is needed. Because it is so concentrated you don’t have to blow anywhere near as hard. Anyone that has ever blown a fire to life knows the feeling. It doesn’t take long to begin hyperventilating and you have to stop while the word spins around. This is virtually eliminated using the tube.

Up to now the discussion is concerned with wood based fires. There are other alternatives. Even the Boy Scout manual encourages the use of stoves rather than the traditional campfire. I can see it in some respects especially in areas that attract city bred day hikers. Many of these areas have so much traffic that there is a distinct lack of available dead wood and without the use of stoves the area would be deforested. Picked clean and looking like the Sahara. Stoves come in many commercial models. Butane fired, Multi-fueled but primarily white gas and even some that burn small sticks and use a battery powered fan to burn hotter plus a few other odds and ends. Then there are the DIY models. The majority of which burn alcohol and are built from soda cans. If interested in these there is a site on the web called. Wings The Homemade Stove Archive. It has a host of links to various styles and a few other styles of stoves for the DIY’er. Of course the majority of these require you to bring along fuel rather than gather it on site.

Two particular homemade take along fires are the Buddy Burner and the Tuna candle. Both are built using tuna cans and use paraffin as a fuel. The tuna can is short and wide making it very resistant to tipping over. It is small enough to be convenient. The can is heavier duty than most of the other cans of the same relative size. Paraffin is a good fuel because it is solid at reasonable temperatures. Although temperatures in a car or other places like an attic can get hot enough to melt it. The new style of can openers that splits the seam rather than cuts through the top make things nicer. There are no sharp edges you need to be careful of. Also the lid that results can be placed back on the can. While it is not a real solid fit with the melted paraffin involved it should hold on well. This gives a cover to reduce messes. If you find this not up to the needs there are plastic lids to cover cat food cans to keep it fresh. These fit tuna cans. One caution about these lids is that they are plastic. You have to let the can cool at least somewhat or you could melt the lid. There are a few differences between the 2. The buddy burner is more of a heat source or cooker that produces some light. The tuna candle is more for producing light but does provide some heating and can be forced into service to cook things. The difference is the amount of flame each generates. The current instructions for making a buddy burner is to cut strips of cardboard box the height of the can. These strips are then tightly rolled so that the entire bundle fills the can. It is then stuffed into the can. The way I learned it many years ago was to do the same thing but to use newspaper. Then as much melted paraffin as will possible be poured into the can fully saturating the filler. The top area is lit and the filler material acts as a single giant sized wick. On the other hand the tuna candle is just that a candle. You can put one or more wicks in the can and fill it with paraffin. With a single wick it produces light and some heat. If you have a couple of evenly spaced wicks and more than one is lit it will produce more light and provide more heat for cooking. The burner produces more heat because you have a much larger burning area. The candle produces more light because the flame is much more concentrated. It is also a matter of air supply. The air is the same for both so the candle has a brighter flame. There is a product on the market called Nu-Wick. It is a candle in a can. What makes it different is the wick setup. The wicks are completely separate not imbedded in the wax. They consist of a stiff wick with a coiled base. Then one or more are placed on the surface of the wax and lit. The more wicks that are used the more heat it supplies. You could probably make wicks like this on your own. Take a regular wick and thread a piece of wire into it to form and hold the coiled base. Giving you movable and the option of a variable number of wicks as the need arises. The biggest difference is that the ones that come in the commercial model float. The homemade ones will probably sink. If the wax is deep enough or the wick is short it could quench itself in the melted wax.

Other alternate fuels include charcoal, coal and oil shale. These are more for permanent location fires and heavier duty fires such as structure heating and working fires for forge and foundry.

For those of you that live in more desert like areas I know trees are often far and few between. The only thing that could be gathered is dried animal droppings, “ The original Buffalo Chips.” These will make an adequate fire if a rather unpleasant one.

Animal fat can be used as a fire or lamp source of fuel.

If stranded in an area with no source of fuel that can be gathered but with a vehicle you can improvise an emergency fire from the fluids or parts. Gas, oil or a combination can be mixed with soil or sand in a container to produce a stove. The tires and upholstery can be set on fire using gasoline to get them started. These produce along with very hot fire huge amounts of thick black smoke that will signal your location.

Speaking of signaling your location fire is one of the universal methods of signaling where you are. During the day wet and green material can be added to produce smoke. At night the light from a fire can be seen a long way. Although in some situations you may want to disguise your presence. Then even though it is not visible the odor can reveal you are there. You can still have a fire yet remain rather stealthy with a few precautions. The Dakota fire hole is one of the best. A hole about 6 to 8 inches in diameter is dug about a foot down. A few inches away a second hole is dug angling so that it reaches or nearly so the bottom of the large hole. It is dug so that it is just large enough to be able to dig to the bottom. If it doesn’t quite reach the main hole a cross channel must be dug to connect the two at the bottom. When the fire is built in the main hole it heats the air. The air then raises this draws fresh air down the second hole to the base of the fire supplying the much needed air. By its very nature it forces you to build a small fire. With the fire below ground level it containing much of the light it produces. With careful feeding you build up a bed of coals and minimize the amount of flames. If you hover over this kind of fire in a poncho or similar rig very little light will be visible. You could even pitch your shelter over it. Wet wood smokes. To minimize the amounts of smoke use the driest wood available. Different species of wood smoke more or less than others. Additionally species like cedar are very aromatic. These should be avoided. Even if there is little visible smoke the smell can be noticed for quite some distance.

That should be enough and probably way too much. Happy bonfires.

Excellent write-up!
My only comment/contribution would be jute binding twine as a prepared tinder. It takes up very little room and can be untwisted to make an awesome bird's nest for taking a flame. My favorite trick for lighting a fire is a spark into 0000 steel wool, then the steel wool into the twine. This into your fire lay and you're in business, usually 30 seconds and two puffs of breath after striking the spark.