Thermal Event
Tips for a successful Thermal Event
or
How to start a fire
The first and most important thing in fire building is preparation. Making a small flame is easy, what you do with that is what will determine if you will be eating hot oatmeal or cold Quaker stew. You MUST get all of your materials together for your fire, not just to start your fire but to make it burn long enough to cook or heat what you want to cook or heat, BEFORE you hit the striker or light a match. If you don't, what you will have is a little flame that will soon go out and you will blowing until you are blue and then, after you have given up, you will be starting again.
We need to talk about dry wood and dry grasses. Dry wood will snap when you fold it. There are no green leaves or buds on dry wood. If you skin the bark, there is no green under the bark If the grass is green and doesn't crumble, it isn't dry. If you try to light green, figure on wet socks and a cold meal. I cannot say how important it is to know what you need before you need it. Look around at the plants and trees and stuff on the ground. Pick it up, feel it, get used to finding it before you need to. Find it at home, on a walk, in the school parking lot.
For this exersize we decided to make a campfire the size that would be good for a few hot dogs or marshmallows. We did not go all the way to a heavy bed of coals like you would want for a good cooking fire for 4-6 people. The only thing we left out was heavier fuel wood.
Ok, first thing is … preparation.
Find or make a safe place to build your fire. If there is a established ring or pit, that is what you want to use. If not, build a ring of stones with no flammable material around it. The bottom line is that you want to keep your fire under your control.
Second thing..... preparation.
First, gather a hat full or 2 double hand FULLs . Full meaning a tightly packed overflowing cap, OR as much as you can get both hands around and hold, TWICE of tinder. Tinder is small wood, really small wood, the size of a pencil lead works real well. If you can find a pine tree, that is a great place to find dry tiny wood for tinder. Other things that will work are thin shavings from the heartwood of a hardwood. Maple is one of my favorites for this but any dry hardwood will work well. Pine needles, grasses will work, but you have to have wood to take the flame that they make because they leave no coals, burn fast, and cool. Try mixing the grasses with other tinder. Four hands are better than two when building a fire. It takes less time as long as you work together. The picture below is 2 double hand fulls of tinder.
Once you have your tinder gathered, it is time for the third step.... preparation.
Now you need to gather more dry wood, a little larger, called kindling. Kindling is dry wood, about the size of a pencil that you add to your burning tinder. Again, the pine tree is your friend, small hardwood twigs, split hardwood strips, work very well. In my opinion, better than pine because you start forming good coals with your kindling. You will need to gather a good double hand FULL of kindling.
The next thing on your list, is.... preparation.
Gather small fuel wood. Small fuel wood can be from pencil sized up to about an inch. You want a good amount of smaller stuff at first as you will be adding it a piece at a time to your kindled fire. At this point it starts to matter what you are going to use your fire for, and how long you want it to burn because you will want to gather enough wood for the entire time you want it to burn.
At this point wood preparation looks like this. This is about 15 min gathering for 2 people. The tinder takes the most time, probably 10 min, but is worth every second.
And the next step..... preparation.
My favorite firestarter is a fire steel, also known as a scout striker, hot spark and other names, and a cotton ball coated in vaseline. They take a little practice but work well in all weather and won't go bad with age. Set up the cotton ball on a couple pieces of kindling, place your tinder close at hand. Your kindling should be within easy reach but out of your way.
Now its time to make fire. If you have done your preparation, this will go from spark to cooking fire a lot faster than it took you to prepare..
The cotton ball takes a spark and starts to flame
Roll the tinder on top of the flame SLOWLY. You have to hold it above the fire until it catches and starts burning well, another good reason for more tinder, keeps your hand away from the flame.
Once the tinder is burning, roll it all the way on.
As the rest of the tinder starts to flame, add your kindling
As the kindling starts to burn well, start adding the your fuel wood piece by piece until you have a good flame that will burn down to a cooking fire. Start with the smallest and work up.
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