How to make a Campfire
If you have been reading this blog you know one of my goals of this trip was to learn how to start a campfire. I’ve gone over the chemical formula and the physics behind it. I never succeeded. I think I was way to scared and respectful of fire. I constantly worried about it going out of control.
Before we had children Robert and I once stayed in a cabin in a small town that luckily had a furnace. Otherwise we would have been very cold. We stayed there a week and tried several times to start a fire in the wood stove. We never succeeded. At one point I soaked a piece of kindling in cooking oil to try and start it. My firefighter Uncle informed me that it was a fire retardant when I told him the story later. I was surprised because one the things that was a great concern in fast food work was how to properly put out a grease fire.
My Stepmother the Ninja Camper was a great teacher. I was able to start a fire that lasted for hours and never went out of control. I feel confident that I could do it again.
I think it was successful in that I felt more confident in my ability to put out a fire since in the past two years I’ve had two occasions when I’ve had to do that. Once my backyard grill started a grease fire, which I smothered in baking soda. Later on my stove caught fire under the heating element. I used a pan to put it out.
We have oxygen tanks all over the house so I’m a little sensitive about fire.
Ok, and before the trip I read Surviving a Wilderness Emergency by Peter Kummerfeldt which had some well written dialog on fires and diagrams on setting fires.
So here it goes.
The campsite came with a metal corrugated tube embedded in the ground with a swing-able grill top. The first thing Nannie had Gabriel and I do is look for big potato size smooth rocks. We place the rocks in a ring inside the metal space. Oh, and before that she dug out the previous ashes in the fire pit. I asked her if we needed those for the fire.
She said "Not that much."
Ok so we got a ring of rocks. Then she had me take thin sticks that are really dry where they make a crack every time you break them and roll them in newspaper. We placed those in the center of the rocks. On top of the paper we stack in a hatching style bigger dry twigs. The stack consists of about three layers with a lot of air between the sticks. She has me light the paper on either side of the pile. Then we watch. It starts to burn. In a minute or two the whole thing is crackling and the paper is disintegrated and black and the thicker sticks are at a nice burn. She has me take a bigger log and set it across the middle. Then she informs me to wait.
Gabriel meanwhile is excited. "Can we do smores yet?"
We let him know to please stay back and yes smores are coming soon just not yet.
After about five minutes the middle one has caught fire. And she shows me how to stack wood to create the triangle teepee thing inside the fire that keeps the heat going.
Wow!
--Mom
