I'm not real good at making fire. I know ... very unmanly! But, I think I know some guys who can help me out.

What I am talking about is basic. I can't keep a fire going even in my fireplace. I just keep shoving more and more newspaper under the grate. Man, it sure does look good when the paper is burning, but it eventually simmers down and goes bye-bye.

Here was my latest failure tonight. I started with some newspaper under the grate. Then I stack up some kindling, not too much. I light that up. Than I put on the kiln dried starter wood I got from the Home Depot. (I know, I know, but I don't exactly live in the woods). Once the paper burned off, the fire really simmered down. I put a log on, but that never really caught. So, I put more paper under the grate. My son thought it was really cool and was even impressed with dad at that point. However, once the paper burned off, the wood soon followed. I did this a few more times, but the same results. It is still smoldering now, but no real flame and hence, little heat, which is the whole point for me.

I need your help Dogs. My son thinks (correctly) that I can't make fire!

One other thing, I am getting a little burnt wood smell through-out the house. Is this normal?

Thanks Dogs!

Disclaimer: This is not to light a fire in the woods to camp and boil water with. This is to light the logs in your fireplace at home.

And be careful. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

...

First thing...

Open your flue. I know you checked, but the fireplace in my house growing up had a flue that you thought you opened until the house filled with smoke.

So check it twice.

Next, for what you're trying to accomplish, we'd always fill that space under the grate with newspaper. I mean pack that sucker full. Tons. Not so it's spilling into your living room, but full of it all wadded up into "balls". You don't need to roll them into logs or shred them into feather sticks... they'll catch better as wadded balls.

Then put your logs on the grate. Don't worry about kindling, that's the newspaper.

Then light the paper in several places.

You want enough paper to engulf the logs in flame.

When the flame's gone down enough to get close to the fire, get low and blow hard at the base of the paper, before it all turns to ash.

Be careful. Do I have to say that? Be careful.

My dad would get frustrated every time my mom asked him to build a fire. I'd come in, he'd say "You don't need that much paper!"

Boom!

Fire.

After a while everyone just asked me to do it and that's my formula.

Boom!

Fire.

However, I haven't tried that in 15 years (married and don't have a fireplace in my condo).

Have fun.

This is how I start my fires <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvW2vla1OkI

Using lots of balled up paper works because it not only puts out a lot of heat very quickly but also gets the flame closer to the wood and the paper acts as a base of "coals" to help sustain the fire in the beginning.

A softer wood burns more quickly and can also help develop the base of coals more quickly. So use the soft woods to start the fire and switch to the dense woods (like oak) once it is going good and hot with a decent base of coals.

How you stack the wood also matters. You want the fire to draw air through the stacked logs so leave some air spaces. With split wood try to have the faces of the wood face each other with a small gap for the air to draw through. This usually allows the fire to sustain itself better.

Dry wood burns much much better than green wood. It's important to let the wood season and dry before you burn it. But you probably knew that <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

And one final tip. The best time to split next years wood is after the first good freeze. The green wood literally pops apart under the splitting maul once the moisture inside the wood is frozen. The old saying that wood warms ya twice is really true!

I don’t like to use lighters to start fires. It’s so easy it’s boring, I prefer firesteels. I don’t use paper either, only natural materials. I use 3 sizes of wood to get the fire going before I put the larger wood on. I use 1 handful of each size, but until you’re more confident with your skills, you may want to gather 2-3 large handfuls of each size. The first smallest size I gather is matchstick to pencil size in thickness. I break it into pieces the width of my hand, and gather enough that I have a large handful.

The next largest size I gather is approximate pencil width size, again breaking into pieces the width of my hand until I have a large handful. The third larger size I gather approximate finger width pieces, breaking into hand width pieces until I have a large handful. After I have these three sizes of wood, I also gather my larger wood, tinder, and sometimes fatwood, and proceed as follows.

I take a piece of wood, and lay it down as a brace as shown below. I lay down a piece of cotton ball in the middle, and sometimes I sprinkle some fatwood shavings on the cotton that I keep in an Altoids tin. Then I stack a few small pieces of fatwood or matchstick size sticks as shown. The brace holds up the smaller wood above the cotton which will quickly turn to flames, while allowing airflow to keep the fire going.


(The waterproof pill fob attached to my firesteel is full of cotton balls)


Here’s a closeup of my 3 sizes of wood to get the fire going, along with my Altoids tin of fatwood shavings and some cotton.




I keep all the wood close, and have the larger wood pieces ready to go too.


I strike the firesteel close to my cotton ball, and it ignites catching the fatwood/match stick sized wood on fire. As soon as it catches, I start putting wood from the smallest pile on, being careful not to put it too quickly and smoother the fire. After the handful of the smallest wood is added, I move to the next larger size, and keep adding it until it’s all on, then I go to the largest pile of the three and add it. Usually by the time all three handfuls are on, I can add wrist size or larger wood and keep building up until it will burn anything.

Here’s a fire I started at my Aunt’s house using a firesteel, some cotton, and wood only:






The more you practice your firestarting the more your skill will improve. Eventually you’ll be able to confidently start a fire in any weather, even in the snow. This fire was again started using only a firesteel, cotton, and wood.





[img]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y209/andywayne/My%20Pics/12-05-07/12-05-07-28.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y209/andywayne/My%20Pics/12-05-07/12-05-07-29.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y209/andywayne/My%20Pics/12-05-07/12-05-07-30.jpg[/img]

It’s good to learn to start fires well, especially with a firesteel. They work in any altitude, have no moving parts to break, are impervious to the elements, and will start thousands of fires. The larger the firesteel, the hotter/larger the sparks it will throw, and the easier it is to start a fire. You don’t even need cotton to start a fire with a firesteel if you practice enough. You can ignite any dry fragile material such as wood dust, or inner tree bark:

[img]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y209/andywayne/Fire/02-28-06-50.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y209/andywayne/Fire/02-28-06-51.jpg[/img]

I attached this large waterproof stainless steel pill fob on my firesteel which will hold seven jumbo cotton balls.
[img]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y209/andywayne/Fire/4-11-06-16.jpg[/img]

Keep practicing, and you’ll get better at it. In time, it will become too easy, and you can challenge yourself to make it harder by doing it in worse weather (cold, wind, rain or snow) or by using more difficult materials, such as less wood, wet wood, etc.

Good luck! [img]http://swcbc.org/IMAGE/animated_fire_2.gif[/img]

Heh. Everybody has their own method. And I'm sure it all works for them. There is no real "trick" to making fire other than practice. Unless you want to get into things like dosing the logs with kerosene before lighting them, but that's cheating and not sane for inside fires anyway.

I'll offer a more theoretical summary of fire instead.

Fire of the household sort is oxidation. Heat causes the complex molecules of the wood (mostly glucose and carbon) to break down and combine in new ways in the presence of oxygen, mainly oxygen from the air. The simple new molecules that are made have less energy in their bonds than the very complicated organic molecules in the wood, and this excess energy is given off as heat. As long as there is enough heat to continue to cause the fuel to break down, the fire will continue to burn or grow.

Fire, then, requires three things which MUST be present: fuel, heat, and oxygen. This is called the "fire tripod". Take away any leg of it, and the fire dies or won't start at all. Heat and oxygen gives you hot oxygen; fuel and oxygen gives you a boring stick doing nothing; fuel and heat gives you nasty smoke. If you are having trouble with your fire, troubleshoot each part separately. If each part is in order, fire should be easy.

Heat is easy enough to get in small amounts with a match or a lighter, or as Andy suggested a firesteel (ferrocerium rod). The amount of heat you need to ignite a given piece of fuel is based on how big it is. Anybody who's tried knows that it's easier to light a piece of paper or a handful of dry grass than it is to light a piece of cordwood. But why? Because in a large piece of fuel, heat is being conducted away from the point you're adding it and being lost over all the surface area that isn't being heated. You can get a piece of cordwood to spontaneously burst into flame, but it takes a massive amount of heat. Paper and grass on the other hand ignite very easily because they are thin and there is nowhere for the heat you're adding to "escape" too.

Fuel must be dry. The drier the better. Water robs your fire of much heat because it turns to steam without adding to the continuing oxidation (fresh wood is also hazardous because pieces of wood can pop apart, sometimes violently, as the water boils inside). Wood takes roughly one year per inch of depth to fully dry to ambient humidity. So a piece of wood that is two inches thick will dry in one year (one inch depth from any face), while a piece of wood that is two inches thick will take two years to fully dry. The loss of moisture is a nonlinear function, and more moisture will be lost in the early stages than in the later stages, hence, you're usually okay burning cordwood after only one year of drying. But it is very difficult to maintain a fire if you are using wood that is only a few months off the stump. The density of the wood will also play a factor here, as the entire piece of wood must be heated to near its ignition temperature before fire can self-sustain itself. Woods like pine, cedar, poplar, and hemlock are light-weight and will ignite easily, while woods like maple, oak, beech, and birch have much more energy content because of their mass but will be harder to ignite.

Finally, oxygen. Your fire needs a lot of it. Most newer homes are so tightly sealed up that you may even need to add an air intake for the fireplace to work properly. If your new house had a fireplace added to it as an "upgrade", or if you have done a sealing and insulation overhaul on an older home, it would be worth asking a professional to come and look things over if you simply cannot get a good fire going.

Here's some takeaway facts:
1. Small, light wood burns faster and easier than big pieces. Use a hatchet or knife to split some pine or similar into finger-sized pieces and use these to start your fire with. Fire can be very easily choked to death by feeding it huge pieces of wood that soak up all the heat and give nothing back.

2. Don't let the fire collapse into a mound. As you add wood, try to stack is such that there is air space around each piece. Remember that without oxygen, there is no fire.

3. Stand some pieces of larger wood beside the fire (inside the fireplace, NOT on the hearth) to get them hot and dry, and only put them in place once you've got a good bed of coals with the fingerling stuff.

4. Be patient. A strong roaring fire takes a long time to build up since you need to establish a "thermal base" as well as warm up the fireplace itself. A fireplace is not something you can just decide "Hey, wouldn't it be nice if..." and turn it on and off.

Good luck, and may Hephaestus be with you. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

CReynolds,

Just a dumb thought on my part here, but has the wood been treated by any chance?
On another forum that I frequent, someone mentioned that starting a fire with
treated wood was harder to do. I've never done it so I can't say either way,
but it's just a thought.

Andy,

It's good to see you posting again!!!
Hope that things are well with you my friend.

Cheers
DotD

This is part of what is missing from your fire equation. It will help to start the fuel logs much easier.

Great posts guys !! Very informative and clear I might add. I have been playing with a flint/steel setup and also considering making " char cloth" and " jute" ? Haven't done it yet- but putting pieces together. Perhaps I should stick this on another thread and maybe Andy or others have played with this ?Thanks <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Wow! Great responses.

No fire tonight as I was busy with some errands. So I will take all this advice and try again tomorrow.

I think that I have not been patient enough and have been trying to get the big logs on the fire too soon. Also, I clearly have been smothering the fire and not providing enough space between the wood for it to breath. I will work on this. Just curious, how often should I be tending to the fire at first? When do I get to just walk away and leave it alone, once a big log gets going?

DotD: The wood was purchased at Home Depot as I was a little late getting a cord ordered and am now looking around for wood as everyone seems to be using their fireplaces to supplement the home heating. I do not think it was treated. It does say that it was kiln dried, so I thought it would be easy to light. I thought wrong!


Andy:

I have to say that you are the man! The pics really help to clarify size of the wood. Also, the pics show how loosely you place the wood together. I have been just sort of putting in one pile. Thanks Bro!

Thanks. I’m ok, I’ve just been kinda busy recently and haven’t had a chance to keep up with posts here.


Until you do, another option I could suggest that I do is use a length of conduit pipe or other small diameter pipe. Hold it like a blowgun and blow your breath through it into the fire. It concentrates your airflow over a smaller area compared to leaning in close and blowing w/o a pipe, and it keeps the smoke and hot air away from your body. Just don’t screw up and take a deep breath in while the pipe is to your mouth, otherwise you’ll inhale a large breath of dangerous superheated gas and smoke and cause SEVERE injury to your lungs.


I haven’t tried it yet, but I’ve read about it a lot. I just haven’t gotten around to trying it yet. Momaw explained how to make it in another thread. While not holding a lot of material, for field use one tin I’ve seen a lot of people use is an Altoids tin. Drill an 1/8” hole in the middle of the lid. You can throw it in a fire before first use to burn the paint off. When you want to use it, you put some cotton, linen, tinder fungas, cattail fluff, punky wood, etc. inside, close the lid and put it in a fire. The lack of sufficient oxygen will keep the material from burning up and it will smolder, turning black in the process. A small flame may be seen by the hole in the tin, as expelled gas is ignited in the presence of oxygen. When smoke quits coming out the hole, wait an extra 20-30 seconds and take the tin out and let it cool. It should be blackish and fragile and slightly crumbly.

You can use the tin to store the charred material in if you like in your pack while in the field. While afield, if you need to make more, you can gather the required dry easily combustible materials and use the Altoids tin to make more char material in the field.


The larger the log, the longer it will burn. Once the big ones are burning, you just need to stir the logs every 30 mins or so, so it burns evenly. A good bed of coals will stay really hot for a while. So, if you’re away too long and the fire dies down, you can stir up the coals, throw some handfuls of small wood on, and blow hard on it a few times (increasing oxygen flow) and it will roar back to life engulfed in flames and you can build it back up to larger logs.

Hope this helps, if you need any more info just let us know! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Another thread. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />