Out in the cold and damp...Fire starting

[phill_ue]

I end to use stick from the bottom of resinous pines to get my fire going, and add my main fuels to that. By the time it is burning well and I'm ready to cook, the resin has burnt away and will not taint the food. I use red pine needles and birch bark (mainly) as tinder and fine twigs from hawthorn, birch and hazel to get my matchstick and pencil thick fuels from. This is basically what is available where I am, main fuel is usually dead standing sycamore that burns well, and this is laid criss cross style to get a good amount of heat and embers quickly and then once the fire is established I often move onto a long lay or star fire, depending on how many pans need to be over the fire.

I had my failures when I first started out but now I like to thin of them as learning experiences more than failures: I learnt how not to light a fire many times! The different tinders available would be my tip to investigate, when I found out about honeysuckle bark it was a revelation! I know of one piece of honeysuckle that grows in the woods near me and it is right on the main path. It is a valuable resource for me, but probably not even noticed by others! Couple that with dry grass buffed up for the bow drill and you have a very reliable nest to get a small ember up to flames with little effort.

 

[ged]

Did somebody mention cheating?

I'm not proud. I take a very small contact lens bottle filled with meths (burning alcohol) wherever I go. As it's miscible with water it doesn't even matter if your twigs are a bit damp: squirt enough alcohol on them and they will quickly catch fire with absolutely no trouble.

I don't think of it as cheating, I think of it as being prepared.

Most of the time if I'm camping I carry a petrol stove, and a drop of the fuel for that can get a fire going really quickly too. But don't carry petrol or other nasty fuels in your pocket, and don't carry a large container of fuel in your pocket at all - if it ignites, you might not survive.

 

[w00dsmoke]

What about different environments? I spend a fair amount of time in really remote/protected and fragile parts of our land. Much of this is either blanket bog with possibly remnant scots pine pockets. Mostly its heather/dwarf birch/bog myrtle and any decent trees are just too old for me to abuse for a fire thats only gonna last minutes. So what I'm saying is that unless you have the resources a fire is nothing short of vandalism.

I tend to carry my fuel in but it's for a stove, rarely a fire. In my kk if I run out of firelighters (because there is rarely anything to use in a kk for 3/4 of the year on wet moors when I'm fishing), I use secateurs to cut old heather up. I also try and rip out some exposed bog wood in the peat. Even if it's soaked you can get it lit someimes by splitting it down and applying a turboflame to it. In the summer it will take a spark and you can get by on dry grass/bog cotton and dead heather and even the peat itself collected from windy exposed hags.

 

[springer5]

I recently bought one of these ferro-rod gizmos and was amazed at how tricky it was to get a flame.

Much the same for me I'm afraid. I'm a complete beginner at all of this so I'm sure it's my fault not the firestick, but although I can get good big sparks flying at what I'm trying to light (or so it seems anyway) all I get is the smell of the spark I can't see the object showing any signs of catching light.

I've even tried bone-dry cardboard from the house (which you'd think would be easy enough) but the sparks appear to just sort of "bounce off" without any danger of anything resembling even the beginnings of a flame. Got some tissue paper to burn a couple of time, but only if I wrapped it around the striker as I struck it. Then it burned so quickly I almost burned the tips of my fingers, not a very safe method really. I can light my petrol stove with it of course - can't go too far wrong with that obviously.

If anyone has any tips on using ine of those things I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks

 

[Sherwood]

Birch bark and a firesteel work well, scrape the bark first to get some fine shavings to catch the spark and your sorted
youtube vid showing birch bark and firesteel in action Here

Even worked for me
Mike

 

[g4ghb]

I swear by birch as well both bark and the thinnest twigs - I teach my scouts to collect twigs from off the ground.... in our District site there are lots of small hawthorn bushes under the birch canopy and they do a grand job of catching the twigs and keeping them dry up off the ground

Though it doesn't seem to matter how many times you tell them to make sure thay have LOADS of twigs they still try to make do with a few then end up running off for more fuel while the fire dies so that have to start all over again!!

'If you fail to prepare then prepare to fail!'