Building a fire

I love building fires. Whether it be in a fire place or fire pit or on a camping trip, I’ve done it all. You have to care about your fire, understand what it does and doesn’t like, and, above all else, have patience!

1) Start before dark

Unless you have good lighting, you really don’t want the hassle of trying to start the fire in the dark. If things don’t go well it’s way harder to see what you’re doing to fix it. It it, of course, possible. But I wouldn’t try it if you’re inexperienced. I really pushed my timing. I was getting it lit right as the sun was going down.

2) Build a pyramid

There are a lot of different shapes you could build. The important thing is making sure you have a good balance of starter, kindling, fuel, and logs.

I started with short, kinda thicker sticks. Balance them against each other to make the base of the pyramid. I then put a piece of cardboard and some paper in the very center. Now start building the initial teepee with small twigs. Leave a small opening on one side.

Now add some fuel. I just laid some paper and cardboard over the twigs. Then lay more sticks on top. Try to balance them so that air can flow between the paper and the sticks.

As you build the pyramid out you want to slowly increase your stick sizes. I always go twig>small stick>branch>bark/small log>firewood. Keep adding paper and cardboard in between the layers. The idea is that the smaller sticks will catch on fire quicker. They burn just long enough to start catching the bigger sticks. Once some of the sticks burn into coals, then you have a decent heat source to keep the larger logs burning.

3) Fuel the fire

When I build my pyramid, I try make a little door that reaches into the center. You can’t always expect the fire to catch from the initial light, you need to keep feeding it.

I stuffed a bunch of newspaper into the doorway of the pyramid and lit it. It started to burn and things slowly began to catch. But the fuel burns our quick. I had a bunch of extra newspaper close by and balled that up and pushed it into the center of the flames.

4) Add logs

Once you get a good amount of flame going you can start adding your big fire logs. Try to keep stacking them in the pyramid shape, it allows for good airflow. If the the pyramid falls over, you will have to readjust to make sure it doesn’t suffocate.

Especially make sure to add logs pretty early if they are wet. The flames will have to dry to wood out before it will start to catch.

🔥voila🔥

Keep an eye on the flames, make sure the fire gets plenty of oxygen, and keep adding logs as needed.

A few tips:

Stack logs around the fire pit to allow them to start drying. (Don’t leave them unsupervised though!)

Find a good poking stick! Something long and sturdy that you can use to adjust and push logs around. Better to use a stick than to burn yourself!

You can be sure you have a good fire going when the inside of it is full of red hot coals! Once you get a lot of coals it’s way less of a worry that it will go out on you. Even if it burns low, as long as you have strong coals you can throw more fuel on it and it will start again.

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