Thank You- you do excellent work !! Very informative post on this much like all of your posts. I appreciate it. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I haven't really got time to read all the other replies but it sounds like your flue might need cleaning, they get built up with creosote and this will stop your fire from drawing and may also allow your room to fill with smoke. If left unchecked they can even catch fire in your flue !!!

Thanks Pitman. A friend suggested I get it checked anyway since we never did when we first moved in.

Had a little better success tonight. I built it up starting with small stuff first. As that started to burn I put bigger and bigger pieces on the fire. Eventually, I put a log on and it did okay. It caught on fire and burned for a while, but it eventually died and never burned all the way through. It sits in the fireplace all charred up!

I am thinking the wood is not seasoned properly. Anyone second that?

Could be, or it could have been too big and you didn't have a large enough bed of hot coals going. You still have to stir/roll the log, and sometimes blow on it. You can't just throw it in and leave it or it will usually go out eventually.

if you happen to be lucky enough to find several logs filled with pine pitch, you get a fire like this:

that sucker flared up hot and actually roared while the sap burned

I use vegetable oil to add more BTUs to paper kindling. I load a squirt oil can with cheap cooking oil. When I use a chimney starter for my grill, I squirt oil over the newspaper before I ball it up and stuff it below the charcoal briquettes. It helps, especially if I’m lighting poor quality charcoal.

A trip to the hardware store got me a length of surgical tubing and some copper pipe with an OD that fits snugly into the ID of the flexible hose. I made up several sets with 3’ of surgical tubing, each with a 6” length of copper pipe, and put one into each of my medium and large emergency kits.

The chief use is blowing air exactly where I want it, to help get a fire started. You can also use them to suck water from a crevice and transfer it to your boiling container either by suck and release or siphoning. There are plenty of other uses for the tubing.

It’s not as ornamental as a bellows, but it’s not as expensive either.

For some reason starting fires came natural to me at a young age; sometimes to my own amazement if you know what I mean. I love the smell of a good campfire or fireplace, makes me wish our current residence had a fireplace.

Practice, practice, and practice!