Making a Campfire

[Beo]

I know everyone here is an expert at making fires and camp fires, but it is all too often an overlooked topic so if this helps I am glad, if you already know this then don't read past right here...
We have some younger pack members on here that this may help and it may not but its good reading and the basics of every survival situation. If you are camping in a park you always need to have a permit before making an open fire. A camping cooker is not an open fire you can use whenever you want. If you make a campfire on an unmarked spot you need to get a permit from the land owner. If you want to build a quick campfire you need a form of ignition, some medium size sticks, fine needles, and large logs. Some good things to use are dry pine needles. Be sure to have the wood brittle and dry. A word some might use is kindling wich means easly dry wood or bits of dry wood used for starting a fire. And that's how to make an efficient fire. You will need 4 dry logs, and some medium size sticks. And should dig a 3 by 2 foot pit and line the edges with stones (not stones from a river or stream as these explode). A good way to light a fire is to use newspaper but it will burn longer with tight balls. The way the fire burns depends on the way you stack the wood. You could make a tent shaped fire with the logs on the outside. It’s important that you check and see if it’s a no hazard zone before making a fire. When you make a campfire you need to take a lot a care doing it.

This is a basic practice for campfires as we teach here in Cincinnati.

[bulrush]

A note about stones. Certain types of stones tend to absorb water, then when heated suddenly, like around a campfire, they explode. It can be fairly loud, like a firecracker. I don't recall which stones tend to explode, but it seems granite and limestone, and sandstone, seem pretty safe as I have used those a lot.

Stones do not have to be in standing water to absorb moisture either. Simply sitting on the ground is all they need to absorb some water. In fact, the stones I saw explode, were no where near any standing water, were in our yard, and we had not seen rain in 2 weeks.

Is anyone more familiar with what type of stones tend to explode?

[grundle]

This is a purely academic question (of course), but if you wanted to "hide" a campfire so that as little of your presence could be detected how would you go about doing that?

Personally I would first dig a decent sized hole so that not only would the wood be obscured, but also the eventual flame you intend to have would also never be above ground. Since most people want latent heat as well as to cook you are really shooting for a bed of coals anyways.

I guess the second thing I would try to do is find the driest tinder as possible since the wetter stuff tends to generate a lot of smoke. Am I forgetting anything? Would anyone go farther, or have any insights that I am missing?

If you made a dutch oven would you still get latent heat from it, or is that a strictly cooking convention?

[Beo]

I was taught to dig a pit at least six inches deep for what you want to do, then using rocks make a heat ferflector on the sides, it in turn hides most of the fire and throws the heat towards you. It would be kinda horseshoe shaped.

[Rick]

Look up Dakota Fire Pit. You can find it on the forum or on the web.

[Beo]

Rick I had totally forgotten about that, those are actually great and work well although kinda rough for heating your campsite, then again it is getting to be hot weather so...
Man I havent made one of those in years. Knew you'd come up with answer.

[Rick]

If you want an evasion fire and want to stay warm using it just sit over the opening and wrap yourself in your poncho or other cover.

[Beo]

Found this on the Dakota Fire Pit
A little known survival aid related to wilderness fire making skills is the Dakota Fire Hole, also known as the Dakota Fire Pit. This handy device is easy to construct and has marked advantages over other types of camp fire constructs. Once you make a Dakota fire hole and try it out, you may choose to use this method on a regular basis.
Making a Dakota Fire Hole is initially more labor intensive than simply building a fire on the surface of the ground. However the outlay in energy required to make a Dakota fire hole is more than offset by its efficient consumption of fuel; it greatly reduces the amount of firewood required to cook meals, treat water to destroy pathogens, or warm your body.
The Dakota fire hole is a valuable wilderness survival aid because it burns fuel more efficiently, producing hotter fires with less wood. In many areas firewood is scarce or requires a large amount of time and expenditure of energy in foraging to obtain it. Once you build a fire, efforts are better spent attending to your other wilderness survival needs rather than in the constant gathering of firewood.
Other advantages of the Dakota fire hole are that it creates a kind of woodstove with a stable platform that is very convenient to cook over.
Should you need to conceal your fire, the fire hole will limit the amount of visible smoke that rises from the fire, since the fuel wood is burning hotter and more efficiently. The pit will also help conceal the light emitted from your fire, especially at night when even a single candle flame can be seen from miles away.
Before you start to dig your Dakota fire hole you should scout out an area where soil conditions are conducive to its proper construction. You will want to avoid areas:
that are rocky and difficult to dig.
with thick tree roots that require cutting.
that are wet or where a dug hole will fill with water.
With soil conditions such as dry loose sand that will not hold shape as it is dug into.
Making the Fire Pit Chamber:
Having selected a likely area in which to dig the fire hole, first remove a plug of soil and plant roots in the form of a circle about 10 or 12 inches in diameter. Continue digging straight down to a depth of about one-foot being sure to save the plug and the soil you removed for replacement later on.
This part of the Dakota fire hole will serve as the main chamber that contains the fire. I prefer to extend the base of the fire chamber outward a couple of inches in all directions so that it can accommodate longer pieces of firewood. This saves time and energy in breaking up firewood into suitable lengths, and also has the effect of allowing larger and therefore hotter fires.
The effect is a jug-shaped hole at the base of which you place firewood. The neck of the jug will serve as a chimney of sorts the function of which is to increase the draft and concentrate the heat of the fire into the small opening.
Making the Fire Hole Airway:
Now comes the key component of the Dakota hole that makes this fire making method so effective; the airway.
Before you start on the airway tunnel, determine the general direction of the wind. If the wind is too light to easily ascertain its direction you can often lick a finger and hold it up, being sure it is away from any obstructions. Evaporative cooling on one side or the other of your appendage will be felt from which direction the wind, however light, is blowing. That is the side of the fire hole on which to construct the airway.
Dig a 6-inch diameter airway tunnel starting about one foot away from the edge of the fire hole. Angle its construction so that the tunnel intersects with the base of the fire chamber as shown in the diagram and picture. As when you made the fire hole section, be sure to save the plug containing the vegetation and roots as well as the loose soil you remove.
Using the Dakota Fire Hole:
Now that the Dakota Fire Hole is properly constructed, you can partially fill the fire pit chamber with dry combustible kindling materials and light the fire.
To start the fire light a small wad of dried moss or something you can reach down into the hole with. Once the flame is going strong, drop it into the fire pit so that it catches the kindling on fire; gradually add sticks so that a strong hot fire is maintained.

This is a great and safe pit, hope this helps anyone wanting use it and I may try this on my trip next weekend.
http://img299.imageshack.us/img299/5797/dakotafireholess1.th.jpg (http://img299.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dakotafireholess1.jpg)
http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/5672/dakotafirepitdiagraman8.th.gif (http://img134.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dakotafirepitdiagraman8.gif)

[RBB]

Building a fire under wet conditions: Couple tricks I've picked up, over the years, for building a fire in rainy, wet, or wet snow conditions. This would be for forest areas - such as we have locally (NE Minnesota), though I once won $5 for building a camp fire in the Olympic Rain forest in Washington state. The people I was with said it couldn't be done.

Preparation is key:

Building a fire in dry conditions is easy as pie. Building a fire in wet or rainy conditions separates the old salts from the weekend campers. The only way to become really good at it is practice, but here are a few things that make it work for me.

I look for leaning birches and take the wisp bark off the lower side where is most likely to be dry. You can also pull off sheets of the looser bark - inside should be dry. I gather enough so it is slightly smaller than a volley ball when compressed. I place this ball of birch-bark inside my jacket, if it is raining, until I get back to the fire site. I'm not interested in doing this twice.

For small kindling, I pick off the small dead branches (1/8 inch or less in diameter) from the bottoms of live balsam fir or spruce. These make good kindling, and at the bottom of the tree, they are more likely to be dry. If they are not dry, I take a jack knife and split them. I get about twice as much of this material as the birch bark.

For larger tinder and firewood, I look for larger dead balsam and spruce branches and I look for an old white pine stump and cut and split in down for dry wood and kindling. Pine knots, often found in a rotted log are also good for wood that will sustain the fire once it is going good.

As all of the above needs gathering before the fire is started, a tarp is handy to keep the materials dry as possible.

For a wet weather fire, the fire is built from the ground up. Place your tinder (the birch bark) in the center. Place a few of the small balsam twigs in a tipi shape over it. Use your body, or a small tarp, to shelter the fire before you get it going. Start the fire, being sure to have plenty more kindling (twigs) handy to hand feed the fire as needed. Add each piece of kindling and wood, one at a time, until your fire is doing what you want. Your wood placement needs to be dense enough to feed the fire, but not so dense as to impede the air-flow. Tend the fire closely for a while, as you are not "out of the woods" until you have a good bed of coals. Sometimes, with a wet weather fire, you are literally building your fire, "one twig at a time."

[Beo]

RBB good info thanks.

[Gray Wolf]

RBB covered an important part "Your wood placement needs to be dense enough to feed the fire, but not so dense as to impede the air-flow." In other words, Don't smother your fire by adding to much kindling and wood before it's going well. Air flow is an important part of starting a fire.

[Sam Reeves]

A few stubby candles under the would be fire always worked for me.

[bulrush]

Last time I went camping it rained hard for 8+ hours at night. The next morning, nothing was dry. Thanks to an older boy scout he showed us how to shave off the outer 1/4 inch of sticks so we could use the inner part to start a fire. After much shaving we got a fire started. Due to scout regulations we are unable to use live twigs from a live evergreen tree. So that was out of the question.

[RBB]

Last time I went camping it rained hard for 8+ hours at night. The next morning, nothing was dry. Thanks to an older boy scout he showed us how to shave off the outer 1/4 inch of sticks so we could use the inner part to start a fire. After much shaving we got a fire started. Due to scout regulations we are unable to use live twigs from a live evergreen tree. So that was out of the question.

No live twigs. Dead twigs (dry - no needles) from the bottom (near the ground) of a live evergreen. Almost every balsam tree has some.

[DOGMAN]

A technique that is used in Montana in snowy/wet conditions is:
Find smallish dead pine tree.
Bend it over
Soak with available fuel
Light on fire
stand back
throw on lots more wood
Apply much more fuel
We call this the "White Man's Fire"
It is tradition to leave several beer cans all around
the fire remains after you leave. So, future
generations know that you were there.

[RobertRogers]

Beowulf, you might also want to note that your post is my original copyrighted material, including the image, taken from my website:

SurvivalTopics.com (http://www.survivaltopics.com/)

an article on the Dakota Fire Hole (http://www.survivaltopics.com/survival/the-dakota-fire-hole/).

[Stairman]

OOps!another great site I enjoy though.

[RunsWithDeer]

Beowulf, you might also want to note that your post is my original copyrighted material, including the image, taken from my website:

SurvivalTopics.com (http://www.survivaltopics.com/)

an article on the Dakota Fire Hole (http://www.survivaltopics.com/survival/the-dakota-fire-hole/).

You have a great site, lots of good info. I tried the Bannock you describe on your site, and bought one of your firesteels.

[Beans]

slighty OT
I noticed A fire Gel at Wal Mart today made by "Diamond" the same company that makes matches.

Anyone ever used this stuff and does it work?

[swampmouse]

I know firecraft and still learned a lot here. Thanks. I have a few splinters of fat lighter in my pack.

[bulrush]

Yes, I have used another type of firegel. Mine was made from corn. I used it to start fires in my fireplace, when I had one. A quarter sized dab burns long enough to start kindling on fire. Very useful.

[JJRichey]

A technique that is used in Montana in snowy/wet conditions is:
Find smallish dead pine tree.
Bend it over
Soak with available fuel
Light on fire
stand back
throw on lots more wood
Apply much more fuel
We call this the "White Man's Fire"
It is tradition to leave several beer cans all around
the fire remains after you leave. So, future
generations know that you were there.

Hey, I've done that!
Wheres about in Montana are you? I'm down in Ennis at the moment but am moving up to Havre pretty soon.

[Beans]

A good way to light a fire is to use newspaper but it will burn longer with tight balls.

Is this in COLD weather????????????????????? :blushing:

[crashdive123]

Now that there's funny, I don't care who you are.

[Rick]

Some questions just need to go unasked. I think that's one of them.