Something to spark a discussion:

I have had the opportunity to work with many scouts (100s at least) and it concerns me how very, very few can build a fire. An order of magnitude fewer scout leaders, but for the greatest part, neither can the majority of the adult leaders. Take away everything but a knife and some matches, and the number that CAN start a fire drops even more dramatically.

Many cannot strike a match; others cannot operate a simple butane lighter, and the vast majority who can have no concept of "wind", distance from standing up to fire lay vs burn time of match, etc etc.

Backtracking a little: This is Northern deciduous forestland. NOT connifer forest. Connifers are RARE and so is birch (even rarer, perhaps). Forget using those types; they are not common. We have Oaks, ashes, maples, elms, walnut, occasional hickory (this is the northern margin of hickory; none exist 20 miles north), and so on. Oaks dominate the uplands and the usual suspects dominate the bottom lands.

I can and do teach these folks the ignition end of firebuilding without much difficulty - ferrocerrium + prepared spark-catchers, matches, butane lighters - all are fairly simple to teach a skill on except matches elude some folks (practice, practice, practice).

I conclude we've scared the bejabbers out of enough generations now (don't play with matches) that many people "instinctively" fear that they will spontaneously explode into flame and die if they so much as strike a match... this is not extreme hyperbole on my part; you have to observe as many folks as I have, but it's there - something is there... very frustrating, but persistance, patience, practice and a few tricks I use seem to work.

So I've had great success with the spark/flame end of things. But when it comes to materials gathering, prep, fire lay... arrrrgh!!! Either not enough repetitions (that's all the time consuming part) or no matter HOW well they demonstrate they understand & can do it, the next time that kid/adult needs to build a fire, they doofus it up as if they never knew anything. ( A FEW do ok except that they plod along at an agonizing pace, taking an hour or more to get everything set up and ready before striking the first spark/flicking a Bic) Darned few seem to retain any skill.

I think part of the difficulty is lack of practice - I can have a learner strike and move dozens of matches under my supervision in a fairly brief timespan, but in that same timespan, only one full gather/prep/lay is possible. It DOES NOT help to have them work in groups - the dominent person takes over and no one else learns anything (...and I know how to manipulate the group dynamics, but that's MORE time). Gotta happen one person - one fire lay.

Anyone have some practical ideas to help teach this? I'm not gonna give up, but it's pretty frustrating right now.

Regards,

Tom