Keeping a campfire going?
 

How the hell do you properly setup a campfire? I went camping last week and tried with no luck...the fire would go out in a minute or two. What kind of wood/leaves should I be using and how should they be set up? Can I keep a fire goin wtih no lighter fluid? Making the fire is not a problem, I just use a lighter hehe...but how do you keep it going? Maybe someone experienced witih this can give me some tips. Thanks in advanced!

Clean up an area about a foot an a half to two feet wide/across whatever... Get some thick DRY branches or DRY logs and pile them like / | \ (Pyramid, see?) see if you can find some birch BARK (you know, the paper like stuff ) and little dry twigs (dry is very, very important) and stuff them under the pyramid of logs/bigger branches, light the timber (thats what the birch and little branches are called) and keep feeding it with other birch and branches untill the big logs catch. They will keep burning for a while if you did it right, and occasionaly poke the whole thing untill it falls over so it catches more.

To keep the bugs away, find a pine tree branch (DRY) that still has its needles and toss that right on the fire. All the bugs go bye bye.

Thanks for all the tips! I was just throwing random branches in there in no particular formation...maybe I'll have better luck next time. So, lighter fluid is not necessary?

Not if you have the right wood. Dry bark from a birch tree is like paper. It catches easily and burns hot. Use that to catch the kindling (the smaller DRY sticks/twigs) and thsoe will hopefully catch the bigger logs.

Everything Turbo says is right, but unless you're trying to imiate a mountain man or somesuch, feel free to bring some lighter fluid (or anything else) to make it easier.

Thanks for all the info, Turbo.

I was going to say the same thing Turbo said about using dry wood. You can throw a wet log on the fire and it'll burn (slowly), but only AFTER you've got a good, established fire.

The trick is to start with small, dry kindling (like bark or cardboard) and keep adding larger and larger pieces to it. If you try to dump a huge bunch of wood on top of a small fire, you're going to smother it.

By the way, aren't campfires the best thing ever?

Campfires are too small. Bonfires rock my socks though. Same premise, but multiplied exponentiallo. Instead of twigs for kindling we throw on dead branches from pine trees out back.

I lost my eyebrows last time.

The best way to light a fire is to get a bundle of dry twigs/mosses, and wrap it in a piece of birchbark (or something similar) in a cone-fasion, so that after you catch the ember from your fire-starting device, you can blow through the cone, causing the ember to catch onto the fluff/dry twigs/crushed bark, etc...

To keep it going, lay the base with smaller twigs in a dry area, and use the larger logs in either a teepee fasion, or a log-cabin design, making sure there is adequate space for airflow (remember the fire triange, heat - fuel - oxygen. Keep on adding dry (DRY IS IMPORTANT) logs onto the top as it burns down.

A good place to get dry wood is the lower dead branches of trees - punkwood (rotten wood) also catches really well, but doesn't burn for too long.

Seems like you guys really know what you're talking about. You guys go camping often or something? I have a question, what about putting pine cones in the fire? It seemed like they burn well. BTW, interesting fact about the pine branch keeping away the bugs, Turbo. Yeah, campfires are the best thing, EVER! While searching for info on them I found this interesting article.

http://www.wildwoodsurvival.com/surv...dchocolatebar/

there are alot of ways to do it, but the best way to keep it going for a while is either t-p way, or logcambin way.
Tee-Pee fire
http://www.florilegium.org/files/PEN...ok/Image11.gif
http://www.insanescouter.com/t276/fi...ogCabinLay.gif
Just put ALOT of wood on either, and they should stay going for a good while, it all depends on the amount of wood used!
So if you do it like
http://members.iinet.net.au/~pearcew...s/xander02.jpg
you should be set for a LOng time

No one has yet emphasized the EXTREME IMPORTANCE of kindling.

No fire will light and STAY lit successfully without embers.

In order to get a nice, red, pit of embers to burn shit on, you need to find kindling. This can range from tiny twigs (they CAN be wet, guys - believe me) to thin wood. NOTHING thick and nothing that will take time to burn.

But you can also not expect paper (newspaper) or fire-starter materials to serve as kindling. There's a natural progression of wood: Starts with very quick-to-burn materials, work your way up to logs.

Also, I would NOT recommend the triangular version of a fire. It's easy to topple if its built by an amateur, the wind can easily carry things away from it, et cetera. The lower to the ground, the better.

I usually do the log cabin approach. Criss-cross logs to make a square-like structure, ever layer or so making a diamond to keep the wood burning.

But kindling, I ASSURE YOU (from many, MANY hard lessons learned on very COLD nights alone in the woods) is the best way to successfully make a great campfire. You need to get shit burning and STAY burning.

Bonfires, I have no experience in.

Oh, and Sass, a bonfire is the exact same thing, just bigger. A lot bigger. And it usually involves gasoline or some other unnecessary fire starter that makes it go "Fwoosh" when you start it.

I KNOW what a bonfire is, sir. It's just a matter of my not knowing enough to advise on BUILDING one, see.

I prefer to avoid using fuels for my fires save for the basic wood and kindling. Because I am a fucking hippie.

I would have to say, though, that one of the most simple but wonderful joys in life is being able to sit next to a campfire at night. EVERYONE should do it with good company and a few beers in their life time.

No no, I mean the way you build it is the exact same thing too. It's just on a larger scale. There are 'special' ways to build a bonfire, but it's not necessary. You can use the same log cabin approach and it'll work just fine. But you're right, something great about sitting and watching the flames--though I prefer a guitar to a beer.

Come on Sass, no slight intended. Ah wub joo. :tpg:

I know, I know. ^_^

And yea man - I have ALWAYS wanted someone with a guitar who knew how to play most songs. I remember camping once, and the dudes about 100 feet away had a guitar and they were singing around the campfire - songs like American Pie and other classics. We were sitting around OUR campfire, singing right along with THEM? And then the dudes next to US on the other side started singing with US?

It was like everyone in the campground just came together to sing to the guitar. Ah, humanity. Sometimes we can be so awesome.

Does anyone actually start a fire the old fashioned way? Rubbing sticks together or however it's done? How is it done anyway?

Sadly, Girl Scouts (for the entire 2 weeks I was one) never wanted to teach us USEFUL things. They would rather have taught us how to brush our hair into perfect styles than teach us what the Boys Scouts ever learned.

But yea, I've used a flint before - never the friction method with sticks. Even the flints took some patience - I remember it being really COLD, and we had no dry matches. My mother had some flint and steel (Mom, the great outdoorswoman) and we had to litterally chip at it with tinders for a while. It's not the EASIEST way, but its a nice thing to learn.

I would LOVE to try the whole friction method, though. I've seen so many variations, it looks like it would be fun to try if you have nothing better to do.

Naw skip all the hard and boring stacking! Put a tire in the middle of your big pile of what ever you feel like burning, throw a bunch of gas on it and set it on fire. Just beware the black smoke. Tirefire++

Don't actually do this... :/

Ohh daaaaamn! I'm the master campfire making/maintainer. It's not something I can properly explain in words. You have to witness me in action! >_>

What, do you fart and start whole forests on fire?

Seriously though, that makes you sound like an arsonist...

Me and some of my friends got a kickass bonfire going on the beach once and we didn't even use the traditional materials to get it started. We bought some AXE deodorant and we had 5 paper bags from when we went to Wendy's and a wooden stump to hold em down. We dug a hole so the wind wouldn't interfere and then we threw the bags in underneath the stump and we lit it up with my lighter. Then we tossed in the AXE and we had ourselves a pretty sweet explosion. It was fucking awesome.

every fire i make lights easily and burns long and well. here's what i do:
-get a hellava lot of wood and tinderhttp://daguuy.forumup.org/images/smi...gliarepino.gif
-get a piece of paper and cover it in a hellava lot of tinder. there is no such thing as too much tinder.
-pile on more tinder
-put on a hellava lot of sticks but leave an entrance for the match
-pile on a hellava lot more sticks
-put on a hellava lot of big sticks to make it look like a pyramid
-put on a hellava lot more big stick until you can't fit any more
-stuff a hellava lot of small sticks and tinder into all the cracks, there's no way to smother a fire with wood. keep stuffing it.
-put on a hellava lot more sticks and big sticks and tinder and make it as dense and full of tinder and big sticks as you can
-light it and get burnt because you were standing inside the 5 mile radius of burnination

i've done it this way for about 6 years and it works every timehttp://daguuy.forumup.org/images/smiles/Timidi1.gif

Big LOL on the 5-mile burnination. I have nothing new to add other than what you read is what will make you a good fire: good topic responses!

Yup, the Girl Scouts SUCK. My sister was in it and the only thing they'd teach her was how to sell cookies...

Lucky for me, I'm not a girl so I got to join the Boy Scouts, and they teach you how to be a pyro!

Anyway, I have to agree with other posters, the log cabin stlye is the way to go. The way I do it, I use fairly large logs for the outside frame (the 4 sides of the cabin) but put smaller kindling across the middle. Remember, heat rises, so start with smaller sticks toward the ground and build with bigger logs the higher up you go. I don't know if that makes any sense or not, this is one of those things that is easy to show someone, but not easy to put into words...

Flint and Steel, it's not easy, but it's very rewarding, knowing that you can actually start a fire without gas (we called it "scout water" back in the day). I found that there are 2 things that help ALOT when you use flint and steel:

#1: Twine. Take a strand of twine and pull it apart, then clump it into a "nest" to catch sparks. Have your cabin already built so when you get the twine started you can move it to the cabin right away (before it goes out and you have to start over).

#2: Lint. Collect the lint from your dryer, and use that the same way you'd use twine.