Smokeless, undetectable fire?

[taws6]

Hi,

First up, happy new year, I hope you all had a great christmas.

I seem to remember reading about a fire that was designed to be largly undetectable and relativley smoke free. I think it was dug into the ground somehow, anyone got any info about this type of set up?

Thanks for the help,
Paul.

 

[Toddy]

Hope your holiday was good too and the New Year is great

Is this the fire you're thinking of ?

http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=37816

cheers,
Toddy

 

[Adze]

I remember reading about the vietcong using very elaborate underground chimneys to eliminate smoke - but it wasn't so much 'undetectable' as undetecable from a helicopter gunship doing 200mph'

On the ground the idea was to confuse the location of the actual fire and release the smoke and cooking smells away from the tunnels they were using. It wasn't undetecable, just less obvious.

I think the ideas only really worked if you were permanently dug in.

 

[stevesteve]

Hi Paul,

I have gone for hexy blocks on the issue burner when I am trying to be discrete as that is almost undetectable, I guess gas or meths would smoke free too.

If you're after a wood fire then I would think that this depends on what you are burning as well as 'how'. Very dry wood will give less smoke if combusting fully, a gassifying stove will also give less smoke.

Anything dug into the ground needs to be done in such a way that organic-rich soils (eg peaty or leaf mould) don't start to smoulder but I'd be interested to see a link if you find one.

Cheers,
Steve

 

[320]

paul-

the dakota fire pit is the most common hidden fire i've read about. i've seen a couple built and used, one with a rock slab used as cooking surface. a modern version that can be easily made for a hut or cabin is called a rocket stove, as i recall.

the fuel you use determines how much smoke you get. however, the smell of the burning fuel and whatever you are cooking will probably give you away anyway.

i personally have trouble lighting the flame on my kitchen stove. so i tend to stay with smaller gas (propane) stoves which are relatively smokeless and scentless.

good luck

 

[Martyn]

Hi,

First up, happy new year, I hope you all had a great christmas.

I seem to remember reading about a fire that was designed to be largly undetectable and relativley smoke free. I think it was dug into the ground somehow, anyone got any info about this type of set up?

Thanks for the help,
Paul.

I'm no expert, but I can usually smell a fire a long way off, wind permitting. I dont know if you can eliminate that altogether, but I think you can do an awful lot to reduce the amount of smoke by selecting your wood carefully, splitting and drying out damp wood before trying to burn it. You only have to throw one crappy, damp log on there to start a big column of smoke and choke everything out.

There is a rhyme somewhere about the different burning properties of different wood, I can never remember it, so I tend to just stick to what I know works, beech, birch, or any old, dry hardwood I can find. Split the logs down and bake em by the fire first. I think Ash is supposed to be the best, but I never see it round here. Oak is supposed to be good if it's seasoned, but that's pretty rare too. Holly is also good and it's worth remembering that it will burn green. Softwoods like pine are useful for starting fires cos they tend to be resinous. But pine burns too quickly for maintaining a fire and I find it can be wet and smokey.

 

[Ahjno]

As said above: split and dry your logs if possible. Remove the bark. You could also go for cooking on coals (bbq style), they produce a lot of heat and are nearly, if not completely smokeless. This is (another) way of how the Vietcong prepared their meals (though by using portable braziers).

Downside is how to get them, if you didn't carried them with you - other than make them yourself.

So I think you'd be best of with wood. Dead standing wood, splitted, bark removed, positioned next to a fire to dry even more.

 

[Bushwhacker]

Blackthorn is pretty good for a hot, smokeless fire.

 

[jojo]

There is a good write up on here about it.

 

[Oblio13]

Supposedly the frontier hunters around here made small fires of white oak bark when they were worried about Indians in the vicinity. Haven't tried it, but hopefully will remember and report back next time I go to a grove of white oaks near here.

Firelight is conspicuous at night, and smoke during the day. Lighting a fire at dawn helps minimize both problems. That's also when people tend to be less alert, or at least less likely to investigate. As has been mentioned above, sticking to dry hardwoods will reduce smoke. A screen of tree limbs above helps diffuse it, too.

 

[Peter_t]

another very good firewood (my personal favorit) is hornbeam it burns long and hot with little smoke and not masses of flames.

char coal is your best option if you want to stay undetected but you have to carry it with you which just isnt practicle sometimes



pete

 

[tjwuk]

Interesting thread. I think the dacota pit is used to mask the light from the fire at night more than the smoke, as it will be as smokey as the wood put on it.

The best bet as mentioned, is to burn only dry wood and to remove as much bark as possible. This is a real problem anywhere thats wet, which in the UK usualy is!

If you could arrange a covered drying area over a period of time and use this as the main stash, then use the fire to dry damper wood thats been split. This makes it hard work, and the inevitable result of finding your wood pile missing unless its your own land etc.

 

[gunnix]

Guess a wood stove like the bushbuddy would be an option if you want a smokeless fire. I have not tried the stove but am curious if it would be of any use when wildcamping and not wanting to be seen. I had made a burner like it with cans myself but didn't find it that comfortable to use, but it wasn't such a good design as the bushbuddy. But most of the time I have no problem wildcamping with a real fire because people are not expecting anybody to camp out in those small forests..

The kelly kettle is also quite undetectable. I've used it a lot when I lived on a camping and it was not allowed to make a fire there. Sometimes it got noticed though When travelling the fire in the kettle was never noticed. But it wasn't such a handy format in the cycle bags. I liked it though, because it was possible to put quite a lot of fuel in it.

I know this thread wasn't about stoves.. so ontopic..I have also used the dakota fire in small woodland with many houses in the neighborhood. It's a nice quite smokeless fire, once it's going and the ground has started to dry out. But it takes some time before it reaches that point and can be smokier then other fires if the ground is damp. One trick to avoid this is to line the ground and sides of te firepit with wood or stones.

With any fire you have to be careful not to put on a lot of wood at once. Just add one or two bits of wood at a time, and start with very fine wood and only gradually go to thicker. For smokeless fire I'd say maximum wrist thick wood, unless it's really dry.

In the tipi smoke is best avoided as well.. There we used a small fireplace (size of a small "laxen" woodstove) with square straight sides (as best as possible with stones) to reflect the heat back into the fire. A pipe came out under the fireplace and brought air from outside. Then the tipi itself acts like a chimney if the windflaps are positioned correctly.

So think chimney, air inflow and small dry fuel..

 

[Chopper]

This is eaxctly what you need.

http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/t.../search-box.jsp.form23&_dyncharset=ISO-8859-1

 

[tomtom]

Dry, dead standing (seasoned) wood with the bark stripped off is the best method I have managed.

 

[taws6]

Thanks for all the replys and links everyone.

I think the fire I was thinking about was what the 'Labouskies' used in the French forests to remain undetected from the Germans during the war, Ray done a programme about them if I remember right.....

The Dacota fire pit looks kind of like what I was thinking about.

What type of fuel does this 'bushbuddy' stove use?

Thanks for all the help,

Paul.

 

[rik_uk3]

Supposedly the frontier hunters around here made small fires of white oak bark when they were worried about Indians in the vicinity. Haven't tried it, but hopefully will remember and report back next time I go to a grove of white oaks near here.

Firelight is conspicuous at night, and smoke during the day. Lighting a fire at dawn helps minimize both problems. That's also when people tend to be less alert, or at least less likely to investigate. As has been mentioned above, sticking to dry hardwoods will reduce smoke. A screen of tree limbs above helps diffuse it, too.

Careful Oblio, your not supposed to say 'Indian' anymore, you have to say 'First Nation'

I think all fires will make some smoke to a degree, certainly they will smell so I suppose your better off with a stove using gas or liquid fuel really if your in some sort of 'stealth mode' style of camp

 

[320]

you're not supposed to say 'Indian' anymore, you have to say 'First Nation'

actually here it's "native american".

in an anthropology class there was a observation made that several tribal names meant "the people"...in our tribe = people...not in our tribe = not people.

i read an account of the texas rangers encounters with the commanches wherein the commanches could determine if a fire was made by white folks by its size (large).

the commanches said that whites were afraid of the dark and the creatures that used it to move about. one of the rangers said that commanches fires were small so that they weren't killed by rangers.

or it was just another story.

 

[Laurentius]

There was something about smokeless fires on one of the Ray Mears progs.

The one about the Bielski's, obviously it was necessary to conceal the camp fires from the Nazi's.

 

[taws6]

That's the one I'm thinking of Laurentius, I've not got a copy of the programme, but they did have a method of hiding their fires effectively.