Campfire Basics
"The only reason for a campfire to go out is a lazy boy."
~ Dick Murr (a.k.a. The Crazy Lawnmower Guy)
In the Fall of 2000 I was staying with a friend who lived in a large house with three fireplaces (both of his parents were doctors). It was a chilly evening and he decided to start a fire in the living room. I watched in amusement as he laid down a full newspaper flat, laid a log that was about 10 inches in diameter on top, and lit the corner of the newspaper. The newspaper caught fire and burned to the edge of the wood, then snuffed itself out. My friend looked surprised, and he sheepishly admitted that he had never started a fire in his life.
My buddy wasn't stupid - indeed he had gone to excellent private schools and was attending college. He just had no real-world experience starting a fire. It isn't as easy as they make it seem in the movies when it's a dry, sunny day (let alone when it's wet and rainy). The first thing that we must understand is the "Fire Triangle".
Every fire requires three things - oxygen, fuel, and heat. Without all three a fire cannot burn.
What my friend didn't grasp was that such a large log requires a large amount of heat to catch fire. Furthermore, there was no oxygen under the weight of the heavy log - no matter how dry the wood, our poor fire had no chance of burning. So how do we create each part of the fire?
The Heat - this part is pretty darned simple. It could come from a match, a lighter, a focused lens, or a simple spark. If the heat falls into a dry bed of tinder (see below) it should catch rapidly.
The Oxygen - this part is even easier! Oxygen is all around us - just make sure that your tinder and kindling are not too densely packed to allow for oxygen to get under your fire. Sometimes we must nurse the sparks in our tinder by lightly blowing on it. If you are using paper then be sure to crumple it into balls so that you get a good flow of oxygen.
The Fuel - this part is a bit trickier. We must collect three kinds of fuel - Tinder (small pieces of fuel that light with one match), Kindling (finger-sized pieces of wood that light easily from our tinder), and Fuel Wood (logs that burn for an extended period of time). The single biggest mistake made by young people in starting a fire is that they don't gather enough tinder and kindling to make their fire go. You would be wise to never strike a match without first gathering at least two handfuls of tinder and an armload of kindling.
All basic fire-building techniques begin the same way - we place our tinder low and position our kindling so as to be above the tinder without suffocating it. Usually we either jam it into the ground or lay it in a crisscrossing fashion across our pile of tinder. Now we're ready to catch a spark with our tinder, and lightly blow upon it until it flares up. Once the kindling starts to lightly crack you should add a few more handfuls of kindling to the top. As these pieces of kindling catch it should be about the right time to start adding some this pieces of fuel wood (no wider in diameter than a child's arm). Once these pieces are cracking you should be able to safely add some larger fuel wood without fear of smothering your fire.