Building A Campfire

Perhaps because making fires is such an age-old human endeavor, failing to make a good one can be a humbling experience. This article will provide tips to help you make the perfect campfire.

Building A Campfire
We've all been burned (figuratively) by lousy campfires in the past. Perhaps because making fires is such an age-old human endeavor, failing to make a good one can be a humbling experience. You might use up several days' supply of newspaper trying to light a campfire for day one. You might smell even more like hot dog smoke than you otherwise would have. You might worry that your fire-making ineptitude, together with that protruding brow of yours, could prompt comparisons between you and Ron Perlman in the classic "Quest for Fire." Far worse, you might be cold. Avoid this unfortunate fate! Here are some tips to help you make the perfect campfire. Plan ahead. This means bringing the supplies that will enable you to build your campfire with the greatest ease. Bring the essentials: some newspaper, matches, logs and kindling. If you buy your firewood in bundles at a local store, there will likely be a few pieces of kindling in the bundle already, but sometimes the smallest pieces of wood in the bundles are still basically logs. Check your bundle! You may find it necessary to chop up a larger log into kindling in order to make your campfire.
Teepee, or not teepee? In a fireplace at home, you might be accustomed to making a fire using the technique known as "log cabin." A log cabin fire is basically cubical in shape. You start by laying down some newspaper and kindling (if you have a little grated rack inside your fireplace, the paper can go underneath while the kindling would go on top. On two parallel sides of this kindling and paper, you place two logs parallel to each other. Then, you add a second level of logs, spaced and parallel to each other but perpendicular to the base logs. When you look straight down at the structure, you see basically a square of logs framing the kindling and paper. You continue stacking logs in this fashion as if you were building a cabin for small, very unhappy lizards or something. You may be tempted to apply the same technique in a fire pit, but you shouldn't! Any boy scout will tell you (and they're right about this) that the better technique for a campfire is the "teepee"-style fire.

To make a campfire using the teepee technique, you will place your large logs in a teepee shape - vertical and leaning inward so that their top ends meet in the center. The end result is basically triangular and more vertically trained, whereas the log cabin was cubical.

Begin in much the same fashion as with any other fire - laying down newspaper and then kindling. Put balls of newspaper in the very center of the pit. Enclosing that will be a small "teepee" of kindling. Plant two sticks of small kindling in the ground vertically, opposite each other with the paper in the center. Now lean the sticks in at the top so that their top points meet and lean against each other over the paper. Continue to add opposite sticks around the center paper until the paper is surrounded by leaning kindling.
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Author: Brian McDonald



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