out today

[spoony]

Went out to a local woods today and had a bit of a forage. Found some interesting things; good selection of trees, birch, hazel, oak, sycamore, to name a few.

The wood itself was very enclosed and we have had a lot of rain up north in past few weeks. Found a spot by the river and thought I would try my hand at a small fire to cook lunch.

As it turns it, a lot of rain finds its way into this wood, but not a lot of sunlight. Just about all of the wood was covered in moss and/or soaked through, which made lighting and maintaining a fire nigh on impossible.

In the end we had to cheat and use the back up gas stove and boil in the bag meals!

For future reference, can anyone offer any tips for making fire under these conditions? a couple of pics included

the failed fire

wetlands but peaceful

me studying tree ident.....poorly

 

[bilko]

Hi Spoony
That river looks idilic!
Now i am a complete amateur at firelighting but i do remember mr mears saying something about splitting wet wood to get to the dry stuff. Also good to see your base of wood on the ground but if that was wet then you were onto a non starter. Maybe splitting that and turning dryside up?
Also i think the small twigs should be match thin and as long as your forearm, anything else will fail! ( there was no explanation for this on the dvd ).
Keeping the tinder warm and dry next to your body was the only other thing he said.
Sorry i can't be of more use but i'm sure one of our firebugs will put me right.
great pics btw.

 

[spoony]

the base wood was damp as was all the wood, there was a fallen tree that was rotten. I cut deep into that later on and that was dryish but still couldnt get it going, the pic posted was a bad one, i did manage to get the wood in the pic going briefly, but failed to get any further. I did spilt wood but it seemed to be wet through, going back again, this week to try again. Will ake some better pics, the place was quite beautiful, but digi cam batteries died before i could take any more. Thanks for the input, hoping for better results next time. Plan is to bake some bannock next time.

 

[tomtom]

Great Photos Spoony.. thanks for shareing, looks like a lovely spot!

 

[Neil1]

For wet weather fire lighting (out on the moor its the only kind) I normally use a ver ylarge twig bundle (this normally just about fits under my arm). This gets twisted and snapped into two bundles and set in what Mr Mears calls a russian fire lay, i think. Everything there after is dead standing wood, no less than wrist thick, cut with a saw and split as small as it will go with an axe or knife.
It will need a lot of work for about 15 minutes or so, but after that should burn quite well.
Hope this helps.
Neil

 

[wolf]

A good way of telling if the wood is too wet is with your thumb nail,you should only be able to make a slight impression,any more and the wood is too wet.

 

[spoony]

to be honest just about all of the dead wood was soaked right throught, even when split down the middle, so maybe a was on a loser fromthe start, lots of birch so going to gather a wad of tinder. Mind you it was a lovely place. Also a sandy bank for fires so no worries of unwanted fires later. And when i had finished couldnt even tell if anyone had been there,

 

[jerv]

why don't you cheat???? in winter I sometimes carry dry wood from home with me just a board or something. once the fires caught and is going add wetter, split material. you can also carry "wet tinder" which will really help get the inital blaze going.

 

[spoony]

didnt really want to i thought it would be a good test, may have to do that next time. Like you said if i could have sustained the fire for a while it would have dried the other wood, anyways i did cheat, in the end i used my small gas stove to cook lunch. Better prep next time and a lot more pics hopefully

 

[Stu Mac990]

In wet conditions, feather sticks cut from drier hart wood can give you a good start to a fire, then add twigs to the top slowly building up in size.

 

[Carcajou Garou]

Spoony, may I suggest that you search out dead branches that are under growth on standing trees. The best of these dead dry branches that are found on the bottom level of coniferous trees and are easily snapped off with no damage to the tree. I also choose larger dry barkless branches which I quarter with my ax to use as kindling; try not to stack the kindling pile to tight around the tinder pile as it restricts the air flow. Use a larger amount of tinder material to give an added boost when the wood is damper.
Keep on trying
CG :yo: