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. 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.
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.
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. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Types
Of Campfires
