Section 4

Section 4 - Fire craft

Pages 98 to 104

Many people think that building a fire is easy to accomplish. In some conditions, it is, in others, it takes training and skill. Gather the necessary components and carefully plan your fire before trying light it

Heat, Fuel and Oxygen are the critical components of all fires, not having sufficient quantities of any of these components will extinguish your fire.

Make sure your fire gets plenty of oxygen by using a brace and platform design

Carry two sets of ignition sources (Ferro Rod, Lighter, Magnesium Rod, Waterproof matches, etc)

Fuel comes in many sizes, starting with tinder and progressively gets bigger into kindling, and then sustaining fuels.

Tinder needs to be dry, and can come from any number of sources. Types of bark, wood shavings, down seed heads, and palm leaves are all good examples.

Kindling is generally thought of as small branches or pieces of larger wood that has been split down to small size.

Sustaining fuel is generally any dry wood source, but can be as exotic as animal dung, or coal (never tried this one).

The brace and platform fire

Build a platform out of any dry material you have

Put a brace on the side of the platform

Ignite your tinder and place near the brace on top of the platform

Add small kindling, then progressively bigger as the kindling ignites

As you get up to thumb sized kindling readily burning, you can add sustaining fuel