Campfires 101

My thanks to my mother for her editing and suggestions and to some fire building descriptions and pictures to be found at Learn2.com 2torial #0438: Learn2 Build a Campfire and http://www.bpscouts.ca/Campfire.htm: Campfire Skills.

ban-Ollaimh Cinniu ingen Cuthbaid, OL
cinniu (at) yahoo (dot) com

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When NOT to Build a Campfire

If you’re planning to have a campfire at a camping event, always check ahead to see if you’re going to be able to build one. Everyone loves a campfire, but sometimes you’re simply not allowed to have one. Here are some of the most common reasons why you would not be able to build a fire at an SCA camping event:

• Dry weather conditions / high fire hazard prohibit anyone from building a fire for safety reasons
• Campground rules only allow campfires in designated fire rings, and your campsite doesn’t have one
• Campground rules prohibit campfires
• Event rules prohibit campfires

When deciding whether or not to build a campfire, here are the questions you should be asking:

If the answer to any one of these questions is “no,” then you should not build a campfire.

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Preparing to Build a Campfire

DO NOT just pick a spot and build a fire. Fire safety demands a fire pit ringed with metal or stones and cleared of flammable material to a certain distance. Many campgrounds will provide established fire rings (often a car or truck wheel rim on its side) or fire pits (often a shallow hole surrounded by fist-sized stones or concrete). Most campgrounds don’t appreciate campers digging a lot of shallow pits throughout their nice green lawns.

Preparing an Existing Fire Ring or Pit

If your campsite has an existing fire ring or pit, then most of your work is already done.

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Building a Fire Pit

If your campsite does not have an existing fire ring or pit, and campground and event rules allow you to dig your own, then here’s what you should do:

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Gathering Safety Equipment

Before building any fire, you should always have adequate safety precautions ready and on hand.

You should always have at least two fire buckets filled with water or sand within arm’s reach of your campfire at all times. Fire extinguishers are also not a bad idea, especially near your tent. Use one or the other or both—always have at least one within arm’s reach. You never, ever know when a spark or ember from your fire will set something else ablaze, or when a sudden wind shift will cause flames to contact flammable material such as clothing or hair.

Always extinguish accidental fires on the ground or in clothing immediately. If they’re small enough, stamp them out. If they’re larger than that, smother them with sand or dirt, or douse them with water. To extinguish clothing fires, follow the “stop, drop and roll” method.

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The Three Key Elements of Fire

• Fuel
• Oxygen
• Heat

All three of these elements must be present to create or maintain a fire. If you’re lacking any one of these, your fire won’t light or will extinguish itself.

What these elements come down to is that you need something to burn, plenty of air, and a source of ignition. With the proper materials and good ventilation, you’ll have a successful fire every time.

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Gathering and Preparing Wood

Most campgrounds provide firewood, either free or for sale. You may consider bringing your own with you, as campgrounds generally provide large logs or trunk wedges, and little else. In any case, you’ll want to check ahead to see what will be available on site or nearby.

DO NOT just go traipsing through the woods looking for firewood. This goes back to what I like to call the Ethical Question: “What if everyone did it?” Answer: There’d be no more wood and a lot of ecological damage.

All wood should be dry and clean of soil, moss or other debris (as much as possible).

You will need three sizes of wood:

• Tinder: Small, extra dry slivers or twigs of wood, about ¼" to ½" in diameter and about 4" to 6" long. Narrow strips of bark work well, and wood shavings will help, but neither of these should be used alone. If you’re permitted to gather your own wood, try to take very dry, dead twigs from trees and shrubs rather than off the ground—they’ll be drier.

• Kindling: Medium sized sticks, ranging in size from ¾" to 1½" in diameter and 12" to 16" long.

• Fuel: Anything larger than kindling, up to and including small logs. You can also gather large logs, but make sure you have a decent range of incrementally increasing sizes.

If wood of the appropriate size isn’t immediately available, you may have to chop larger chunks down to size. A STRONG WORD OF CAUTION: If you haven’t been taught how to handle hatchets or axes by an experienced, safety-oriented person, you have no business waving a sharp implement around. Seek education or get someone else to use it.

Make sure you gather or prepare enough of each size to build and maintain your fire for as long as you’ll need it.

Carefully stack your wood in piles of appropriate sizes. It’s really helpful to have your wood all lined up in the same direction, rather than a large, messy pile.

Make sure your woodpiles are at least two feet away from the edge of your fire pit.

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What to Use

• Clean, dry wood
• Matches or a grill lighter
• Firelighters

What NOT to Use

• Paper products
• Dry leaves
• Painted or treated wood or other flammable material
• Wet or green wood
• Gasoline, charcoal lighter fluid, kerosene or other flammable liquids
• Cigarette lighters

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Why You Shouldn’t Use It

Paper products and dry leaves tend to get borne aloft by the fire’s thermal convections. They’re often still burning when they rise. Thermal convection and ambient breezes combine to turn burning paper and leaves into little incendiary devices, which can land on all sorts of flammable material nearby (tents, clothing, dry leaves, dead grass, hair, and so on).

Painted or treated wood or other flammable material will often produce noxious or toxic fumes as a product of burning.

Wet or green wood produces a LOT of smoke. Smoky fires are miserable, not only for yourself, but for any neighbors camping downwind of you.

Gasoline, charcoal lighter fluid, kerosene or other flammable liquids can produce dangerously unpredictable results, even explosions, when ignited. They also produce fumes and can add unpleasant tastes to any food cooked over the fire.

Cigarette lighters (or other small, hand-held lighters) have to be held very close to the material being ignited. You run a strong risk of burning your hand or of having the lighter explode in your hand.

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If You MUST Use It…

Sometimes it’s just impossible to find the appropriate tinder or completely dry wood. If you must use:

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Building & Lighting a Campfire

There are many ways to build a fire. Which style you choose depends on what you ultimately wish to have a fire for—cooking, companionship, celebration, and so on. Here are three basic styles that lend themselves well to a variety of campfire situations:

• A-Frame: The quintessential cooking fire. Once started and established, it can be built up to just about any size. The best fire style for a good, general-purpose cooking fire in the shortest amount of time.
• Teepee: Produces tall flames, making it ideal for one-pot cooking and pretty bonfires. Especially easy to start in windy conditions. Can be built to any size.
• Log Cabin: Easy to build, requires little maintenance once lit, and produces excellent coals. Great for cooking or bonfires, as it can be built to any size.

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Laying a Fire: A-Frame		Graphic by Kendra Myers
Make the letter “A” out of large kindling or small fuel in the center of your fire pit. The wood you choose should be about 12" long and about 1"-2" in diameter. The sides of the “A” can rest directly on the floor of the fire pit; the “crossbar” should rest on top of the sides. Place tinder inside the top triangle of the “A” so that one end of each twig is resting on the floor of the fire pit and the twigs are all leaning against the crossbar of the “A”. The result should be a sort of miniature lean-to of twigs. Don’t pack your tinder too closely—make sure you’re leaving enough space for good ventilation.
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Laying a Fire: Teepee		Graphic from Learn2 Build a Campfire
The picture below shows how to builda small teepee of tinder and kindling to use in lighting a larger fire. It uses a ball of fibrous tinder, which is just another tinder option. To make a cooking or bonfire sized teepee, start by making a small a-frame in the center of your fire pit. Take small fuel and create a teepee of wood around the a-frame (the picture below will show you the general idea—just upsize the scale significantly). Make sure you leave at least one opening large enough for you to reach the a-frame inside, and make sure that the sides of your teepee are close enough to the a-frame to catch when you light the fire.
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Laying a Fire: Log Cabin		Graphic from Learn2 Build a Campfire
Start by making a small a-frame or teepee in the center of your fire pit. Build a miniature log cabin of small or medium-sized fuel around the a-frame or teepee. The size of wood you choose will be determined by the size of the fire you wish to have. Gradually lay the logs toward the center as you build the cabin. Remember to leave plenty of space for good ventilation. In the end, it will have the appearance of a pyramid.

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Lighting a Fire

Before you light your fire, read the Important Safety Rules following this section.

When your campfire is laid out and ready for lighting, try to position yourself or a friend between the prevailing breeze and the fire. Light the fire by applying your flame source to the tinder. It’s helpful to light the tinder at several points, but don’t feel you have to use lots of matches to do so.

One-match fires are the norm for the experienced campfire builder. As you improve your techniques for gathering and preparing fire materials and laying out your fire, you will find that you need fewer and fewer matches to actually light your fire successfully.

Once the tinder is burning, gently and carefully add more tinder to the flame one piece at a time. Add pieces as rapidly as the fire grows. Don’t add a new piece until the previous piece has caught. Make sure you allow plenty of space between pieces to maintain good ventilation. If you add too many pieces too quickly or too closely together, your fire will smother from lack of oxygen.

As you add pieces, gradually work your way up in wood size. Add pieces in a lattice pattern—place several pieces parallel to each other on one layer, then add the next layer perpendicular to the previous one.

Don’t add your largest pieces of wood until the fire is very well established.

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Important Safety Rules

NEVER, NEVER, NEVER pour flammable fluids onto a flame or source of heat. The fluid can ignite and the flame can (and probably will) run right up the stream of fluid to ignite the container in your hand, with explosive and extremely harmful (if not fatal) results.

NEVER, NEVER, NEVER try to extinguish a grease fire with water. This was the last lesson learned by quite a few people cooking in their kitchen. Adding water to a grease fire results in a shockingly large fireball. You are not likely to survive the results of pouring water onto a pan full of burning grease over your campfire.

NEVER, NEVER, NEVER leave a fire unattended in any stage between lighting and extinguishing. DO NOT go to bed while there is any fire or glow visible in your pit or ring. Left unattended, open flames or glowing coals (even ash-covered embers that don’t appear to be glowing) can very easily lead to a spreading fire.

NEVER put plastic, glass or metal items in a fire. Glass and metal can become dangerous at the worst, and constitute littering at the least. Plastic produces some truly noxious and toxic smoke that can harm people in a wide area.

NEVER use your fire pit or ring as your trash receptacle. The only items that should EVER be added to campfire are wood and maybe some organic food trash (such as vegetable skins, but not fruit rinds).

Paper products should not be added at all or added with extreme care. Paper is often coated with plastics or impregnated with other chemicals that can produce noxious or toxic fumes, and burning paper smuts can be borne aloft and land somewhere to start more fires.

ALWAYS be aware of your hair or clothing when working with a fire. Tie your long hair back securely and roll up loose sleeves.

ALWAYS be aware of the prevailing wind or gusty weather. Watch to make sure that the wind doesn’t blow your campfire flames dangerously close to flammable materials.

ALWAYS be aware of the presence and actions of others around your campfire, especially small children or inebriated adults.

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Maintaining a Campfire

Whenever you add wood to the fire, DO NOT toss it on—place it carefully. Throwing or tossing wood onto a fire produces sparks, which can land on something flammable and start another fire. Placing wood carefully also gives you more control over where the wood ends up and helps prevent undesired firewood shifts or collapses.

Keep your fire small and contained. Most of the time, there’s absolutely no need for a roaring bonfire.

If you need to re-ignite the fire from embers, or encourage more flame, blow gently and steadily on a focused area from the side of the fire (NOT from above). Don’t huff and puff and expend great gusts of unfocused air, and don’t use a fanning device. As you blow, be aware of sparks, smuts and ash and where they’re landing.

Think carefully before adding more large pieces of wood to your fire. Plan ahead as to when you wish to put the fire out and let it begin to die down at least one hour before that—longer if you have a well-burning fire full of large pieces of wood.

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Extinguishing a Campfire

When you’re done with a fire that still has flame, glowing embers or smoldering chunks of charcoal, douse it. Sprinkle (don’t pour) enough water to quench all embers and charcoal, but don’t flood the pit. Remember that another person is likely to need to fire pit within a few days (such as yourself the very next day). Use a stick to stir the embers and ashes to get them all wet; turn charcoal over and wet it down on all sides. When nothing hisses anymore as you pour water over it, and you can comfortably place your hand on ashes and charcoal, the fire is sufficiently doused.

DO NOT go to bed while there is any fire or glow visible in your pit or ring. Left unattended, open flames or glowing coals (even ash-covered embers that don’t appear to be glowing) can very easily lead to a spreading fire.

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Restoring Your Fire Ring or Pit

When you are completely done with a fire pit for an event, carefully remove all ash, charcoal and other debris and dispose of it properly (consult the event or campground staff on where to dispose of ash and burned material). Leave leftover wood stacked neatly for the next camper or return it to the campground general supply (if appropriate).

If you have dug your own fire pit, fill it again with soil after cleaning it out. Remove and scatter the stones you used (preferably back to the same general area you got them from). Carefully replace any sod you removed earlier. You could even go so far as to water that patch of grass.

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Some Helpful Hints

If you’re going to use your campfire for cooking, bear in mind that embers produce steadier and more intense heat than flames. Cooking on open flame will only lead to a burned dinner. Let your fire burn down to hot embers before starting to cook your meal, and only add enough wood to the fire periodically to maintain your base of embers.

Hardwood (roughly, wood from deciduous trees) burns much cleaner, faster, brighter and hotter than softwood (roughly, wood from coniferous trees). Softwood also tends to hiss, spit and spark more than hardwood. Many campgrounds tend to sell softwood. Be aware of what you’re using and plan your fire maintenance and cooking accordingly.

Keep your matches in a dry, waterproof container at all times.

Firelighters are darn handy things. These are items that will generally ignite even when soaking wet. You can purchase high-quality firelighters in camping supply stores, or make your own.

To make your own firelighters, you will need paraffin wax (available in any store that sells canning supplies), a cardboard egg carton, and sawdust or tiny, thin wood shavings.

A word of advice: Melt the wax in a double boiler (the package directions will tell you as much). Remember that whatever you use to melt the wax will be pretty difficult to get thoroughly clean of all that wax.

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Copyright June 2001 to Kendra Myers; all rights reserved. Contact the author at cinniu (at) yahoo (dot) com for permission to use this article in part or in whole.