Outdoor Survival Guide/Fire

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When you're out at the campground with friends, fire-starting is a fun and entertaining skill. When you're lost in the wilderness or otherwise stuck in some cold/damp situation, it can be vital to your survival.

Proper fire-starting and -building skills are best learned and practiced before venturing into any wilderness area. Being stranded in any cold, or even merely temperate, region overnight with no source of warmth can potentially be the last mistake you ever make.

General

Start your fire first with tinder, then add small twigs (wire size), then pencil size twigs, then thumb size twigs. Keep the fire small so that you aren't wasting valuable energy gathering firewood all the time. However, if gathering wood is easy big fires are good for attracting attention. Burn whole logs without cutting them by just sliding them into the fire as they burn (the whole log will not catch fire).

Don't fear rain. Rainwater is just on the outside, and this does not mean that wood is sodden through. Green wood and young branches are "wet," and won't ignite readily, but any kind of wood will eventually burn on a hot enough fire. If it looks like a heavy downpour is coming, build a roof over your fire using one or two big logs about a foot (30cm) above the coals.

• Paper, cardboard, or unneeded cloth can be easy to start on fire
• Use small twigs from under the main canopy of the tree as tinder. (If they don't break off easily, they're still green.)
• Dry pine needles work great to start fires and give off lots of smoke (good for signaling).
• Rubbing bark between your hands until it is fluffy also makes excellent tinder
• Cattails easily catch on fire.
• If stranded in a vehicle, you can siphon out some gas or oil.

If you don't have matches

• The old "fire-bow" trick is very hard work even under the best circumstances, but it can be done if absolutely necessary.
• Fire can be started with a glass lens from a magnifying glass, mirror, binoculars, and the polished bottom of a soda can. (Most eyeglasses will not work.)
• The reflector of a (broken) car headlight can be used to concentrate sunlight and start a fire. Place tinder where the filament is and point the lamp at the sun. Same with a flashlight reflector. (a tricky operation, but possible)
• Flint and steel works well but is a lot easier if you practice with it first. (See also: How to:Start a fire with flint and steel)

Lately many new products have become available:

• Two-part chemical fire starters work fairly well and work even in the rain.
• Magnesium fire starters work well you should practice with them first.

Some other ideas

• a tealight candle works wonders.
• If you have a 9 volt battery and a bit of steel wool, hold the steel wool against the battery's terminals and it will spark and start the steel wool burning. (smells awful, but gets your fire going)
• Just for fun (be careful with frost bite for this one) but you can actually start a fire by melting a piece of ice with your hands into a lens and using it to start a fire.
• Be creative

To coax a struggling fire into a healthy blaze, fan it or blow on the coals. A flap of cardboard makes a great fan. Just be careful not to blow it out...

Finding a site, and other safety issues

While some items in this section may not be of much concern if you find yourself in a life-or-death situation where you need fire NOW, they are all worth consideration, especially if you are merely relaxing in a recreational area.

The dangers

A campfire may burn out of control in two basic ways: on the ground or in the trees. Dead leaves or pine needles on the ground may ignite from direct contact with burning wood, or from thermal radiation. Alternatively, airborne embers (or their smaller kin, sparks) may ignite dead material in overhanging branches. This latter threat is less likely, but a fire in a tree will be damned near impossible to put out without firefighting equipment, and may spread a lot more quickly than a ground fire (if this happens in the middle of a particularly dry, hot summer, you're pretty much screwed unless you have a handy river to dive into — and even that might not help much).

Embers may simply fall off of logs and be carried away by the air, or they may be ejected at high speed by exploding pockets of sap. With these dangers in mind, some locales prohibit all open fires, particularly during times of the year particularly prone to wildfires.

The safety measures

Ideally, every fire should be lit in a fire ring. If a fire ring is not available, a temporary fire site may be constructed. One way is to cover the ground with sand, or other soil mostly free of flammable organic material, to a depth of a few centimeters. The area of sand should be large enough to safely contain the fire and any pieces of burning wood that may fall out of it. Sand piles should be scattered after the fire has been put out. If the topsoil is moist, it may suffice to simply clear it of any dead plant matter.

Fire rings, however, do not fully protect material on the ground from catching fire. Flying embers are still a threat, and the fire ring may become hot enough to ignite material in contact with it.

No fire should be lit close to trees, tents or other fire hazards. This includes overhanging branches; some carry dead, dry material that can ignite from a single airborne ember. In addition, a fire may harm any roots under it, even if they are protected by a thin layer of soil. Coniferous run a greater risk of root damage, because they lack taproots and their roots run close to the surface. Fires also should not be lit on bare rocks, because the ash will leave a black stain.

An additional safety measure is to have sand and water on hand to smother and douse the fire if it does get out of the fire pit. It is wise to gather these materials before they are actually needed.

Types of fuel

There are, by conventional classification, three types of material involved in building a fire without manufactured fuels. They are:

1. Tinder is anything that can be lit with a match or spark. The best natural tinder is dead, dry pine needles or grass or cattails. Those who are not particular about using only natural material find that wadded-up paper, toilet paper, or paper towels also make excellent tinder. (If they are not wadded, these materials burn more slowly and pose a greater risk of flying embers.) Cotton swabs and tampons are also superb. Unraveled ends of a rope made from natural plant fiber (such as hemp rope) also burn very well. Some stores sell powdered alkali-earth metals, such as beryllium or magnesium, that burn violently. If none of these available, leaves or very small twigs may be used. A quantity of tinder sufficient to fill one's cupped hands to the top is the bare minimum needed. (See also: Tinder)
2. Kindling is an arbitrary classification including anything bigger than tinder but smaller than fuelwood. In fact, there are gradations of kindling, from sticks thinner than a finger to those as thick as a wrist. A quantity of kindling sufficient to fill a hat may be enough, but more is better.
3. Fuelwood ranges from small logs two or three inches across to larger logs that can burn for hours. It is typically impossible to gather without a hatchet or other cutting tool, so fuelwood must usually be brought from home or purchased at a nearby store. Chainsaws can come in handy really here.

The gathering of fuel in natural areas is often restricted. Cutting of living trees is almost always forbidden - but it's very useful, anyway, because sap-filled wood does not burn well. Squaw wood (dead parts of standing trees) may also be prohibited in some places. Wood lying on the ground is usually up for grabs.

Building the fire

So you have a suitable site and all your materials, now you have a variety of designs to choose from. A good design is very important in the early stages of a fire. Most of them make no mention of fuelwood - in most designs, fuelwood is never placed on a fire until the kindling is burning strongly.

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  A teepee fire
  The teepee (Which we all learned in Scouts, right?) is perhaps the best, but it is takes some patience to construct. First, the tinder is piled up in a compact heap. The smaller kindling is arranged around it, like the poles of a tipi. For added strength, it may be possible to lash some of the sticks together. A tripod lashing is quite difficult to execute with small sticks, so a clove hitch should suffice. (Synthetic rope should be avoided, since it produces pollutants when it burns.) Then the larger kindling is arranged above the smaller kindling, taking care not to collapse the tipi. A separate tipi as a shell around the first one may work better.

• A lean-to fire-build starts with the same pile of tinder as the tipi fire-build. Then, a a long, thick piece of kindling is driven into the ground at an angle, so that it overhangs the tinder pile. The smaller pieces of kindling are leaned against the big stick so that the tinder is enclosed between them.

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  A log cabin fire
  A log cabin fire-build likewise begins with a tinder pile; some prefer to build it around an already-constructed "teepee". The kindling is then stacked around it, as in the construction of a log cabin. The first two kindling sticks are laid parallel to each other, on opposite sides of the tinder pile. The second pair is laid on top of the first, at right angles to it, and also on opposite sides of the tinder. More kindling is added in the same manner. The smallest kindling is placed over the top of the assembly. Of all the fire-builds, the log cabin is the least vulnerable to premature collapse, but it is also inefficient, because it makes the worst use of convection to ignite progressively larger pieces of fuel.

• A variation on the log cabin starts with two pieces of fuelwood with a pile of tinder between them, and small kindling laid over the tops of the logs, above the tinder. The tinder is lit, and the kindling is allowed to catch fire. When it is burning briskly, it is broken and pushed down into the consumed tinder, and the larger kindling is placed over the top of the logs. When that is burning well, it is also pushed down. Eventually, a pile of kindling should be burning between two pieces of fuelwood. The logs will eventually catch fire from it.
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  A pyramid build
  A pyramid - This is like the log cabin method, except the layers get smaller as they reach the top, and there is no tepee inside. Place two small logs or branches on the ground so that they're parallel to each other, then put a solid layer of small logs or branches on top of them in a perpendicular direction. Add three or four more layers, each time alternating the direction, and each layer being smaller than the one before. Light the top of the pyramid on fire, and it will burn downwards on its own.

• Another variation is called the funeral pyre method because it is used for building funeral pyres. Its main difference from the standard log cabin is that it starts with thin pieces and moves up to thick pieces. If built on a large scale, this type of fire-build collapses in a controlled manner without restricting the air flow.

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  The rakovalkea bulid: hard to get right, but VERY efficient
  The traditional Finnish rakovalkea (literally "slit bonfire") is constructed by placing two long pieces of fuelwood atop each other parallel and bolstering them in place with four sturdy posts driven into the ground. (Traditionally, whole unsplit tree trunks are used for the fuelwood.) Kindling and tinder is placed between the logs in sufficient quantity (but avoiding the very ends) to raise up the upper log and allow ventilation. The tinder is always lit at the center so the boltsering posts don't burn prematurely. The rakovalkea has two excellent features to recommend it. Firstly it burns slowly but steadily when lit; and doesn't require ardous maintenance, but burns for a very long time. A well constructed rakovalkea of two thick logs of two meters length can warm two lean-to shelters for a whole sleeping shift. The construction means that the logs themselves act as wind-cover! Thus exposure to smoke is unlikely for the sleepers, but nevertheless someone should of course watch, barring emergency conditions. Secondly it can be easily scaled to larger sizes (for a feast, say) limited only by the length of available treetrunks.

Lighting the fire

Once the fire is built, the next step is to light the tinder, using either a match or a lighter. A reasonably skillful fire-builder using reasonably good material will only need one match. The tinder will burn brightly, but be reduced to glowing embers within half a minute. If the kindling does not catch fire, the fire-builder must gather more tinder, determine what went wrong and try to fix it.

One of five problems can prevent a fire from lighting properly: wet wood, wet weather, too little tinder, too much wind, or a lack of oxygen. Rain will, of course, douse a fire, but a combination of wind and fog also has a stifling effect. Metal fire rings or dug pits generally do a good job of keeping out wind, but some of them are so high/deep as to impede the circulation of oxygen in a small fire. To make matters worse, these can also make it very difficult to blow on the fire properly.

Steady, forceful blowing may be in order for a small fire in an enclosed space that has mysteriously slowed down, but blowing may extinguish a fire if it is done abruptly or when it is not needed. Most large fires easily create their own circulation, even in unfavorable conditions, but the variant log-cabin fire-build suffers from a chronic lack of air so long as the initial structure is maintained.

Once the large kindling is burning, all of the kindling should be put on the fire, save for one piece at least a foot long. This piece is useful later to push pieces of fuelwood where they are needed. Once all of the kindling is burning, the fuelwood should be placed on top of it (unless, as in the rakovalkea fire-build, it is already there). For best results, two or more pieces of fuelwood should be leaned against each other, as in the tipi fire-build.

If there are no matches

There are several ways to light a fire without a match. All of them work with only the lightest and most flammable tinder, such as toilet paper or tampons.

• If it's a sunny day, a magnifying glass may be used to focus the light onto the tinder. If a magnifying glass is not available either, another lens may do, e.g. the lens from a pair of glasses (although, as mentioned above, this usually doesn't work very well).
• The "bow and drill" method is also well-known, but it is a lot of work. The bow is similar to that used for archery. To make such a bow, find a thin rope or flexible but sturdy vine, and a sturdy stick about two feet long. Tie the rope to one end of the stick, and make another knot on the other end of the stick, with the rope between the ends not quite taut. The drill is another straight stick, thin but strong, preferably stripped of bark and with a sharpened end. The center of the bowstring (rope) is wrapped around the drill, with the two sticks at right angles to each other. The end of the drill is placed on a piece of bark in the middle of the tinder. The bow is moved rapidly back and forth to rotate the drill and create heat and friction on the bark. This method works best with an assistant feeding the tinder to the hot spot.
• Flint and steel can be used, but that takes a lot of practice to get right.
• The crudest method of igniting a fire is to produce sparks by striking a small, hard rock against a larger rock. However, this takes considerable practice, and sparks are quite ineffective at starting fires.

Extinguishing the fire

Leaving a fire unattended is dangerous under any circumstances, survival situation or not! Any number of accidents might occur in the absence of people, leading to property damage, personal injury or possibly even a wildfire (and you thought you had problems before). Ash is a very good insulator, so a fire left overnight will only lose a fraction of its heat.

Large amounts of water are indispensable for extinguishing a fire but in a survival situation, try to use untreated water for this and save the good stuff for drinking; you'll likely need it. To properly cool a fire, water should be poured on all the embers, including places that are not glowing red. The water will boil violently and carry ash in the air with it, dirtying anything nearby but not posing a safety hazard. The water should be poured until the hissing noises stop. Then the ashes should be stirred with a stick to make sure that the water has penetrated all the layers; if the hissing continues, more water should be added.

If water is scarce, sand may be used. The sand will deprive the fire of oxygen quite well, but it is much less effective than water at absorbing heat. Once the fire has been covered thoroughly with sand, all water that can be spared should be poured on it, and the sand stirred into the ash.

If you have no spare water and no sand or other suitable material to smother the fire with... well then, piss on it. Literally.

Finally, in lightly-used wilderness areas, it is best to replace anything that was moved while preparing the fire site, and scatter anything that was gathered, so that it looks as natural as possible. Unless, of course, you are lost and (for some reason) actually trying to walk your way out. In this case, make as big a mess as possible; it will tell searchers that you were there.