February 23rd, 2008
Outdoors
As regular readers of this column no doubt will recall, during recent weeks I have been stretching out my column topic (”Three Things Everyone Should Know About the Outdoors Before They Turn 30″) like two kids arguing over a piece of taffy.
This is partly because I get paid per column and partly because at any point I am due to have a baby and thought that preparing a batch of columns in advance would help me cover my bases.
The No. 1 thing I deemed important (Feb. 27, 2005) was being able to identify the animals and plants in your own yard or neighborhood. Check out your newspaper’s online archives in the event you missed it.
Today: No. 2, Be Able to Build a Fire.
Quite probably the entire reason human civilization advanced beyond the Early Days was because a couple of our early ancestors figured out how to build a fire. In the event that they could somehow come back to life, learn how to read, and see that my No. 2 suggestion is that everyone should be able to build a fire they probably would have themselves a good belly laugh. After all, basic survival, until more recent times, depended on this skill. Now, not so much.
But still, it is a handy skill to have. Whether your life ever will depend on it at some point depends on many variables, such as whether you ever will become lost in the wilderness or whether we have another ice storm like the one of 2002, and you are without heat or a food-cooking source for umpteen days, or whether your kids are demanding to roast marshmallows at the lake when you go car camping.
Beyond survival, there is something delicious about a fire that warms the spirit, fuels the soul, and provides a psychological boost that says, “Things are OK.” The glow of the fire becomes a glow within ourselves. (It also can be used to sterilize bandages, signal for rescue and provide protection from animals).
Generations of Girl and Boy Scouts have known about this fire power and have gathered around campfire rings, singing songs and sharing stories for decades. Now urban dwellers have joined the club and have purchased chimneas made of clay for their decks and patios in an attempt to create a similar aura.
To build a good fire in a campfire ring, a chimnea or for survival in the wildnerness, you’ll need three basic elements — air, heat and fuel. Remove any of these, and your fire will go out before you can so much as get a marshmallow on a stick.
As for fire-building materials, you’ll need three kinds — tinder, kindling and fuel.
Tinder is dry material that ignites with just a spark. It could be a handful of straw or hay, for example.
Survival experts recommend anyone going on an extended hiking or backcountry camping trip take a Ziplock baggie of dryer lint to use as tinder.
Kindling is dry, readily combustible material that you add to the burning tinder. It could be, with the editor’s approval, this newspaper rolled into tight little wads. Or it could be a good armful of twigs that range from matchstick size to the diameter of your thumb and sorted by size. The object with kindling is to increase the fire’s temperature so that it will ignite the less combustible material you place on top.
Fuel is the stuff that burns slowly and steadily once lit — pieces of branches the diameter of your arm and big logs, for example.
The way you arrange these materials is a matter of personal choice and experimentation. A favorite method for outdoor fires is a tepee, in which you arrange the tinder and a few sticks of kindling in the shape of a tepee or cone, with larger logs on the outside. Light the center, and as the tepee burns, the outside logs will fall inward, feeding the fire.