I was backpacking the West Coast Trail with my cousin last year when I realized that not everyone knows how to start a fire. I am not talking about the ‘survivor man’ way of rubbing two sticks together or using a magnifying glass etc. I mean starting a simple campfire with materials from nature and using just one match (or two). My cousin, who is a radiologist, made fun of my systematic way of gathering ‘sticks’ and organizing them by various sizes. Although I know it was in good humour, in my head I was thinking what skill would you rather have in the wilderness – knowledge of starting a fire or the ability to read an x-ray?

Starting a fire is an important survival skill that everyone, especially the man evolved, should know how to do. Here’s a step by step guide on how to do it.

Step 1 – Prepare the site. From an enviornmental perspective, you should always use an existing firepit. If there isn’t one available, then here’s what you do. Make sure the site is somewhat protected from wind or rain and away from low trees or underbrush. Dig a hole, about 6 inches down. The pit should be about 24 inches in diameter for a small group of people and about 36 inches for a large group. The size should be as small as you need to keep warm. Keep in mind fire can travel underground, so if you are in a dry area, line the bottom of your pit with small rocks. If possible, line the perimeter of your pit with large rocks.

Step 2 – Find tinder. The most important thing is to find ‘dry’ tinder. Look for dried moss, bark, dried leaves, plant fibres – pretty much anything you can find that is dry and small. Think shreaded paper.

Step 3 – Gather wood. This is for my cousin. Gather three sizes of wood and organize them in piles around the pit. The small pieces should be about the size of a pencil, the medium about the thickness of a jumbo hotdog and the big pieces should be about the thickness of a baseball bat. The small pieces are used to start the fire, the medium to grow it and the big pieces are used to keep the fire burning.

Step 4 – Build it. Put the tinder in the middle of the firepit. Make sure the tinder isn’t packed too tight. If you are using moss, make sure you spread the moss apart. The reason is so that air can get through it. A fire needs oxygen to burn. Now stack the small sticks on the tinder in a structure of a tee pee. Make sure you leave enough space in between the sticks to allow for air to get through. A tee pee helps to guide the fire upwards.

Step 5 – Light it. Once you have the base structure set up, you can light it. Light the tinder at the bottom of the pile. Once lit, help the fire spread by gently blowing on the tinder. Make sure you blow from the bottom.

Step 6 – Add fuel. Once you have the base burning, add some of the medium sized wood to the fire. Again, you can stack the pieces in a form of a tee pee to build the fire up. Some folks add the medium sized wood to the pile before lighting the fire but I prefer to do it at this stage. The reason is that it gives you more room to work with and it also allows you to control the fire better.

Step 7 – Keep it burning. Use the big pieces and build a ‘log cabin’ around the fire – one log over another in a form of either a triangle or square. This will keep the fire burning and you can just add wood as needed.

Now that you know how to start a campfire, make sure you put it out when you head in for the night. As much as it is easy to start a fire, it is easy for it to get out of hand.

campfire · survival skill

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