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Fire starting is easy if you follow these tips. Nau Nau via Getty Images

Our survival expert breaks down how to start a fire quickly and easily, no matter the conditions

The post How to Start a Fire: The Ultimate Guide to Modern Fire Building appeared first on Outdoor Life.

                   

Fire starting is easy if you follow these tips. Nau Nau via Getty Images

Few survival skills draw attention like how to start a fire. Perhaps it’s because we still find it magical to take materials from the land and create something that offers both warmth and light. Or, perhaps we know that fire is critical when the mercury drops and darkness settles in. Even if we don’t know why fire skills interest us, we do know that fire building is important. 

Fire starting is a broad topic and given the thousands of years of evolution in the skillset, there are many ways we can approach building fire from the most primitive friction-fire methods to the most modern tinder and electronic lighters. You could spend a lifetime studying all the different methods to make fire. But if you only want to learn the most effective, and need a few proven methods for when you absolutely need a fire, this article is for you.

How to Start a Fire in Four Stages

There are four stages to building a fire: fire preparation, fire starting, fire maintenance, and fire extinguishing. 

Fire preparation is the act of locating a spot to build a fire, clearing debris from around the central hearth that could accidentally catch, and assembling all the co*ponents you need prior to starting. 

Fire starting is the act of striking a match, scraping a ferro rod, catching a piece of tinder on fire, or otherwise initially igniting your fire. Fire starting is where the three requirements for fire, heat, air, and fuel must co*e together in the right ratio to burn properly. These requirements are often referred to as the “fire triangle” and when a fire is not burning well, you can troubleshoot which of the co*ponents is lacking. 

Fire maintenance requires you to stoke the fire, add fuel to it as necessary, position logs to achieve more or less flame, and otherwise keep the fire going as long as you need it to burn. 
Fire extinguishing is the process of dowsing your fire, moving the firewood to the outside of the fire ring, making sure there are no hot spots left behind, and making sure the fire is no longer burning. Your fire should start with an understanding of the final stage first as it is not wise to build a fire you cannot put out. 

Choosing the Most Effective Fire Lay

Assuming you’ve identified the location where you want to build a fire, you must think about what type of fire will help you acco*plish your goal. There are different ways to arrange your fire that will produce maximum light and heat, burn for a long time, and other ways that allow you to control the amount of heat you use to cook with. How you assemble your fire is referred to as a “fire lay.” Here are the co*mon fire lays and what each is best for. 

The Tipi 

Perhaps the most iconic and easily recognizable fire lay is the tipi fire that draws its name from the cone shaped configuration of firewood. This fire lay burns quickly, much like a wooden match held upside down, and it produces a tall bright flame. It is a good fire lay if you need to warm someone or if you want to illuminate your campsite at night.

Log Cabin

An alternative to the tipi is the log cabin fire lay. Much like Lincoln Logs, this fire lay is built up with perpendicular logs creating a box and it can be used for cooking as it burns very steady and doesn’t flare up. 

Platform and Brace

A hybrid of the log cabin fire lay is another called the “platform and brace”. Think of this firelay like a single corner of a log cabin built up on a heavier log that allows for airflow. The corner of the platform and brace points in the direction the wind is blowing and the initial fire is lit to the inside of the corner. This forces the flame into the material you wish to burn. 

Long Fires

Additional fire lays include long fires that are built the entire length of a body, resting alongside it. The long fire is popular among winter camping enthusiasts and bushcrafters that use it when temperatures drop and wood resources are plentiful. 

Star FireSimilar to the long fire, the star fire is used by groups of outdoorsmen camping next to a fire for the night. The star fire has a central fire with long logs extending out from the center like spokes on a wheel. The campers sleep between the spokes and throughout the night each camper can push the nearby spoke into the fire to keep it burning.

Fueling Your Fire

Your fire will be built with fuel of different sizes and shapes regardless of what firelay you decide will work for your needs. As you assemble and prepare your fire, think of increasing the surface to mass ratio of the firewood. To visualize this, imagine attempting to light a wooden 2×4 with a single match by holding the flame against it. Now imagine taking that same 2×4 and carving it into thousands of toothpick-sized shavings.

The same match would easily light the pile of shavings because the wood has more surfaces and edges to catch flame on. Also, as you build your firelay, don’t jump in fuel diameter too large too soon. Limit yourself to using fuel no more than two times the diameter of what you are currently using as you build your fire larger.

Tinder

The fuel you use should always start with tinder. Think of tinder as fuel that is light and fluffy and can light with just a spark. Some co*mon examples of good natural tinder include birch bark, dried leaves that haven’t fallen from trees, actual old bird’s nests, and cedar bark. This type of fuel will likely flash and won’t burn long but it provides a starting point for your campfire. From tinder, the next type of fuel you’ll want to use is kindling. 

Kindling 

Kindling is more substantial than tinder, but unlike tinder, it probably won’t start with just a spark. Kindling will light with a brief exposure to a flame and kindling can be either found on the land ready to go in the form of “squaw wood”, found on the underside of evergreen trees, or cut down to size from a larger piece of firewood. Kindling is pencil lead thickness and it should have a distinct crack when you bend it. There is an old expression, “if it doesn’t crack, throw it back.” The best kindling is that from softwoods like the conifers since this type of wood burns very hot and very fast. It isn’t the type of wood you want to use in your campfire the whole night but it is the best to get it going. 

Adding Fuel

After you gather an appropriate amount of tinder and kindling, you must direct your attention to the fuel that will sustain your fire for as long as you need it to burn. Small fuel is approximately pencil to finger thickness, medium fuel is wrist size, large fuel is the thickness of your arm, and primary or main fuel is fuel up to the thickness of your thigh. 

Be forewarned, it is easy to jump too soon from one thickness of fuel to the next. Instead of rushing the process, monitor how your fuel is burning. If you notice there is a lot of smoke, consider your fire triangle of heat, fuel, and air. Perhaps you have too much fuel and not enough heat. Perhaps you have heat and fuel but not enough air. 

Troubleshoot as you adjust your fire and the fuel you add to it. As you burn more of your small fuel and medium fuel, you’ll notice a bed of small coals forming at the base of your fire. When you add more medium and large fuel, the coals will beco*e more substantial as your fire continues to burn. Eventually, you’ll be able to place more fuel on top of your fire and it will ignite from the heat co*ing off the coals.

Ignition Sources

Modern fire starting utilizes modern methods of making fire. Thanks to technology, an inexperienced person can be equipped with the means to make fire anywhere and as long as they carry these tools and use them properly. Modern fire starting doesn’t have the same drama as primitive fire starting and it may actually be too easy to even raise any doubt you’ll struggle. 

READ NEXT: The Best Fire Starters of 2023

Yet, even though technology has greatly improved, you should still plan on carrying redundant layers to ensure success. Use the acronym “P.A.C.E” (Primary, Alternate, Contingency, Emergency) to help you build out the layers of preparedness. Think of spreading out what you carry on your person/pack, instead of carrying all of your kit in one location—so just in case you lose some of your fire starting kit, you won’t lose all of it.

Primary Starter: BIC Lighter

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