Learning to Build a Campfire

It's the perfect time of year for a campfire or a cozy backyard bonfire. How do you set yourself up for success when it comes to getting a fire going? 

Do you have a skill you want to learn? Or one you want to help me teach other dads? Get in touch at skillsfordads@gmail.com or on instagram @skillsfordads. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hi Cold. I'm Dad. But seriously, let's make a campfire. Welcome to Skills for Dads, the show where each week we look at one skill that can be useful in our lives as parents. My name's Will, and I'm not an expert in any of these things. That's the whole point. We all have things we can learn and ways we can help each other grow in little consistent ways that are good for us and for the people around us. Thanks for joining me. So at least in the part of the world where I live, it's kind of the perfect time of year to be doing things outside. A lot of us are camping. Maybe you are even celebrating Father's Day this weekend by you know doing some kind of a camping thing, or you know, maybe even just having a little backyard bonfire kind of a thing. So if you're going to do that, how do you get it started? How do you get that fire going? Now, there are a lot of possible ideas on this, and I want to give you a way that I think is the most straightforward, foolproof plan under normal circumstances to get a nice fire going that you can enjoy with your family and your friends. Right? This is skills for dads, not skills for you know like Arctic explorers. This isn't like an extreme survival situation we're talking about here. With that said, if you think that I'm totally wrong about something, you can send all of your hot takes and your burns on the campfire episode to skillsfordads at gmail.com. And, you know, maybe at some point at the end of the season, whenever that is, we can do a little listener mail episode. So the first thing is to figure out whether you even should have a fire, and if so, where? So there's a safety consideration, and so because of that, I want to turn to a higher authority than myself, although I am a volunteer firefighter. But in terms of campfire safety, who better to turn to than Scouting America? And so they have some things they suggest to think about. For example, what are the environmental conditions? You want to see what the weather has been like. Like if it has been super dry, especially if where you are, if there's an active burn ban, or just you know, the grass is really dry, everything is super dry, if it's super windy. Maybe think twice about whether you're gonna have a campfire or not. Also think about whether you have an appropriate spot to do your campfire. The scouts suggest that you want to keep the fire a minimum of 15 feet away from tents and shrubs and trees and other flammable objects. You know, hopefully you want to have some kind of a fire ring or fire pit. If you're doing this in your backyard or anywhere where there is like a lawn that you don't want to damage, I know I've had it happen before where certain kinds of fire pits, if you just put them directly on the grass, you might have that little scorched circle of grass underneath. Maybe that's not that big of a deal, but that's for you to think about at least before you start making a fire. And then have a plan if it doesn't go the way that you expect it to. So the the scouts talk about an emergency response plan for having a safe experience. So, you know, thinking about having, you know, a shovel or a rake, a source of water, something that if you had to put out the fire, you would have some tools to do that. Yeah. You know, study up on your first aid about burns. That's probably a whole other episode. But something to think about. Before you start doing something, it's not a bad idea to be prepared for it to not go the way you want it to. That's like a general philosophy that's probably part of the the ethos of of the skills for dad's world. So once you've determined that you are going to have a campfire, that you're prepared to have a campfire, and that it is safe and you have the right place, what do you need? So you're gonna want to gather supplies. And what's involved in those supplies? Well, you might have been told in the past that in order to make a campfire, you need tinder and you need kindling. And this is true. And it is also information that you absolutely do not need to retain. This is gonna be a hot take, but you can start a fire without knowing which thing is Tinder and which thing is kindling. But what you need is something that's gonna be really easy to start on fire at first. This is Tinder. If you think absolutely that you have to remember that that's Tinder, that's fine. But really, what I want you to think about here is paper. You want paper. You want a balled up piece of very dry paper. Newspapers that you keep in your camping gear specifically for this purpose? Great. Greasy fast food bag you just found wedged under the seat of the car? Honestly, probably even better. Just make sure that you get the moldy chicken nuggets out of there first. Are there other kind of fire starters out there that work great? Yes. Absolutely. Fantastic. If you have them, use them. But do you know what you probably already have handy? Paper. If you're like me, you probably have too much paper, and getting rid of a little bit of it is an added bonus. Alright, so now that is Tinder, but you don't have to remember that. What about kindling, which you also don't need to remember? But what you do need is a bunch of, you know, little dry twigs and sticks. And I mean a bunch, a bundle. More than you think that you need. Now, lucky for you, as you're listening to Skills for Dads, there's a good chance that there are children around. And do you know what a perfect task is for kids? Having them gather those little sticks. You can even tell them it's kindling if if you think that's important. And so here's what they are gathering. Little sticks that need to have a thickness of really no bigger than like the size of a pencil. And ideally, you want quite a few sticks that are going to be quite a bit smaller than that. So think about wooden matches, about how big of a wooden match stick is. Now, that is something that is specifically designed and manufactured to be the ideal size piece of wood to just burn just quickly enough and just well enough to light other things on fire. And that's what we're trying to do here. You want a big pile of very dry, like they need to snap, not bend, snap and break, and they're good and dry. And get a big pile of those sticks and pile them next to your fire pit. And you're probably going to want to get a pile maybe not as big, but of what I tend to think of as like in-between-size sticks, too. So like maybe the the size of your thumb or a little bit bigger. And depending on what you have for your firewood, you might not really need much of those, but but they can be kind of a good in-between step between your tiny sticks and your actual firewood. Now, what about the actual firewood? Well, what your firewood is like is going to depend on a lot of things. If you have like a nice bundle of really dry split hardwood from you know from the gas station or the campground store, you probably don't need to do much else. Now, if you have like great big whole logs, well, then you probably need to split it. And that's going to be, I would think, have to be a whole episode of its own. I think, I think splitting firewood, that would be a, you know, that's a decent skills for dad's episode. But for right now, let's imagine that you've got some nice dry split hardwood firewood. So the last thing that you need is a source of ignition. Now you can use matches, you can use a lighter. You could, in theory, use flint and steel. I've started fires that way, but based on what we've already talked about, you are not prepared to do that yet. There's some other things you need to have ready if you're going to use flint and steel. How about we get one of those nice long, you know, barbecue lighters? Yeah? Yeah, let's do that. And that's it. That is all of the supplies that you need. Notice what I didn't include here. I did not include lighter fluid or kerosene or gasoline or any other kind of chemical accelerant. You don't need it. Leave it alone. Put it away. It stinks, it's dangerous. And and if you don't take the time to actually build your fire the right way, all the lighter fluid in the world is just gonna go up in a big flash, and and a few seconds later, you're still not gonna have a nice campfire. So let's just build the fire the right way. Okay? So how do we build it? Well, you remember that paper that I had you get earlier? You're gonna take it and you're gonna crumple it up. You're gonna make like a a loose ball. And I like to use, you know, maybe three or four sheets of paper kind of loosely balled up. Put those in the middle of your fire ring or your fire pit. And if you can get those balls of paper to be kind of a little bit of a pyramid, mound them up a little bit, so much the better. That's gonna make the next step a little bit easier. But you don't absolutely have to do that. Next, you are gonna take all those little twigs you gathered, and you are going to pile them around. Now, the way you're gonna pile them is what is a lot of times called a teepee style. I remember back when I was in scouts, they had us learn about the different kinds of fire building, and we'd learn about the log cabin style and the lean to style and the teepee style. And so, what we're talking about in terms of an all-purpose, gonna be really effective, that's the one that a lot of times is called the teepee style of fire building. And as you might guess from the name, the shape of it, really only the shape, is reminiscent of you know, an upside-down conical shape, similar to the shape of like a teepee, as would be used by like the plains peoples. You're gonna take the sticks and you are going to make basically an upside-down ice cream cone shape, and the sticks are gonna be vertical, leaning all around your paper in the middle. And you really want to pile them on there so that it's it's sort of the the structure almost of like a bird's nest, but but with that kind of conical shape of sticks sticking up. After that, you can take your little bit bigger sticks if you have those, and you can place those around. Now, not too much. You want to keep in mind that you're still gonna want to be able to access the paper with your lighter or your match if that's what you're using. And you are gonna want to not completely smother the fire with whatever kind of wood you are putting on there as well. So then you are ready to place some of your actual firewood on there, your split logs or you know, whatever form of firewood you're using. And you know, this depends on the size of the fire you're building and the size of your firewood pieces. But typically in kind of a normal campfire ring and normal size split firewood, I would say four or five pieces, four or five split logs stacked up again in sort of that teepee inverted ice cream cone configuration, so that when it's all done, that's basically the shape you have. And you should be ready to light the thing. And so the next thing that you are going to do is figure out which direction the wind is coming from. If there is much of a breeze at all, your life's going to be easier if you turn your back to the wind. And you'll take your lighter, you'll place it into the center of the fire that you have built, and you will light the center of the paper. One of those balls of paper that's in the middle of all of your little sticks and your little bit bigger sticks and your firewood logs that should all be leaning in sort of a nice, nearly vertical position in that inverted cone. And when you do that, the paper should catch on fire. And when the paper catches on fire, those smaller sticks should catch on fire. And when those smaller sticks catch on fire, the medium-sized sticks should also catch on fire. And when the medium-sized sticks catch on fire, the split firewood should catch on fire, or the logs or whatever you're using as your main firewood. And once that catches on fire, well, you have a campfire. Congratulations. Now, what if it doesn't work? You know, there is a chance that you go through all of this, and ideally, you know, if you followed the instructions that I've given you, and as long as your wood was all pretty dry, I think you are gonna have good success starting a campfire. That said, just like anything else in life, sometimes things don't go the way we plan. And if your fire doesn't start right away, well, take a breath. Because it can be frustrating, especially if you've got, you know, your family and friends watching you as you have declared already that you are going to be the great fire builder. But it's okay. Have a little grace for yourself. Sometimes things don't work the way we expect them to. Maybe the wood was just a little bit too wet. Maybe the weather is not in your favor. You know, if the wind is really howling, or if there's misty rain, or if they're, you know, even sometimes when it's really humid, it seems like that humidity just gets into the wood and it just doesn't light very well. Fortunately, you are not in a life or death survival situation. At least I I hope not. I mean, if you're in a life or death survival situation and you are listening to a Skills for Dads podcast, I mean, I'm flattered, but I don't I don't know if that was the right tactic. For the rest of you, it's okay. Have some grace for yourself. Maybe try a different strategy from what I've listed here to see if you can get the fire going. If you want to mess around with, you know, layer of fluid or that kind of nonsense, now's the time for that. But but here's what I suggest instead. If you can't get the campfire going, get a lantern. Maybe get some citronella candles too. Get a deck of cards, sit at the picnic table. You might not, you know, have a campfire like you originally planned, but you can still have a perfectly lovely evening under the open sky and enjoy your time with your friends and family. Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll join me next time. As a reminder, if you've got an idea for skills that we could learn together, or even a skill that you want to share with your fellow dads, send me an email at skillsfordads at gmail.com or follow me on social media at skills for dads.