Guest Posts on County 10 are provided by contributors and the opinions, thoughts, and comments within are their own and may not necessarily reflect those of County 10.
I don’t get many chances to start fires these days. Earlier in the week, I lit our annual bonfire of discarded furniture, corral poles, and assorted bits of boards from my shop, for my granddaughters, Jayne and Norah. It’s always a spectator sport for the girls.
Friday evening, Sue and I rented a cabin at the Louis Lake Resort with our son Brian, his wife Katelin, and their children, Morgan and Matthew (the grandkids Morgie and Matty).
There was a primitive fire pit, just a circle of volleyball-sized rocks, but it was more than enough. I gathered dry needles and broken branches from nearby trees, snapped off a few dead limbs, and piled some chunks of a decaying fir tree into the makeshift pit.
Starting a fire with a single match is a hallmark of the outdoorsman. I’ve always strived to get a blaze going with just a single scratch on the side of the matchbox.
Louis Lake Fire h/t Randy Tucker
I wasn’t disappointed Friday night. The winds blowing in from the north had whitecaps on Louis Lake, and these same breezes fanned the fire in front of me. The needles burst like gasoline, and we had a nice fire in just a few minutes.
The ability to control fire was one of the first separations of man from the other animals. Fire was once an essential part of life, and it still can be when you’re alone in the wilderness.
Starting a fire was once a matter of life and death. It remains a valuable lifesaving skill if you’re ever lost or stranded in a remote area far from civilization.
Until a generation ago, you didn’t have to worry about cell phone reception; it was just you, your skills, and wits, against the challenge of the elements.
The last thing you want as a seasoned woodsman is to have a pile of burnt matches lying on the ground, and no fire. It is much better to be prepared to start a fire with a single spark.
The idea of a one-match fire is a popular metaphor in literature, not just in wilderness survival, or hunting and fishing lore, but in the concept that once something is prepared correctly, the process will work with just a simple push to place it in motion.
One of the iconic scenes from the Mountain Man epic “Jeremiah Johnson” features Robert Redford as Johnson, struggling to build a fire against an approaching blizzard. Just as the fire takes hold of the kindling, a gust of wind drops a load of heavy, wet snow on top of it, suffocating the flames. It is a metaphor for life’s challenges rolled into one 10-second sequence of film.
As a young man, when the age of 35mm film dominated wildlife photography, I often took my Pentax 35mm camera into the mountains of Wyoming. A largely unnoticed benefit of 35mm film was the canisters it came in. Small, tightly sealed plastic containers that were perfect for a host of wilderness applications. I kept salt, Ibuprofen, dry flies, and most important of all, strike-anywhere matches, cut to length to fit inside.
They sold weatherproof matches, but as a youngster on a fixed budget, it was easier to pinch the matches to length with a set of wire cutters and put them inside these containers.
There are four ways to start a fire. Some are easier than others. The most arduous method is the one seen most often in survival shows, friction.
The idea is to turn a pointed stick with enough energy to heat it to the point of ignition. As all Ray Bradbury fans know, that point of ignition for paper is 451 degrees Fahrenheit, (at least at sea level.)
Matches, lighters, and specialty fire starters are the easiest method, while flint and steel take a bit of skill and timing.
Ignition is one thing, getting that small spark or flame converted to a roaring fire is quite another. I used to carry a wad of steel wool with me into the wild. I used it to put the final sheen on finished wood projects I made, and the embedded sawdust and bits of polyurethane were excellent ways to catch a spark and create a quick burst of flame.
But often you don’t have access to steel wool, paper, or waxed wood kindling; that’s where nature comes into the picture.
The best natural kindling is an abandoned nest, followed by dry grass, small dry sticks, and, if you’re in an area with evergreens, the dead, brown branches of a pine, spruce, or fir. Pine, fir, and spruce needles go up like gasoline.
Bird’s nests are good fire starters if they don’t contain a lot of mud. A squirrel nest is good as well, but the best nest you can use to start a fire belongs to a pack rat. Pack rats gather anything they can find, and most of it is organic material in various states of decay. A pack rat nest is almost as explosive as charcoal fluid when used correctly.
Flint and steel require timing. It’s easy to get those sparks flying, but not so easy to get them to get a flame started. The timing comes in when the spark hits the nest, leaves, or needles, and you blow on the spark to increase the flame. It’s the same process as in a blacksmith’s forge, only on a much smaller scale.
If you have steel wool, the sparks will combust easier than with grass or needles, but all will work with a bit of patience.
The idea of rubbing two sticks together to start a fire is an oversimplification of the process. If you’re like I was as a kid, you probably tried this trick and quit after a few minutes.
A better method is to build a bow from a thick, pliable branch and use a shoelace as the bowstring. Wrap a twist in the shoelace around a straight, hard stick with a pointed end and work it back and forth against another hard piece of wood. Downward pressure while working the bow will generate heat. Once black ashes start to form around the point, get a handful of feathers, leaves, or dry grass and hold them opposite the slowly rising smoke and blow on it.
Add a few pieces of grass next to the drill stick, increase your bow speed, and blow on the grass. The stick will begin to smoke just before the grass ignites. When the grass ignites, carefully lay a ball of grass next to the flame. That first burst of flame can be built into a huge fire.
The entire mix will ignite and flame off quickly, so place your cache of dry twigs, leaves, and grass on the ball of grass.
Add progressively larger sticks, then logs and you’ll have a fire that can keep you warm, cook your food, serve as a beacon to search, and rescue teams if you’re stranded, or just provide nature’s answer to television in the mesmerizing flames.
As the blaze evolved to glowing coals, I put some tinfoil-wrapped vegetables that Sue had prepared into the fire. Potatoes, carrots, zucchini, and onions with a dash of garlic salt and some butter. We could hear them sizzling.
I flipped them after 20 minutes and they were the perfect addition to the ribeyes and salmon Brian was cooking on a portable grill.
Why does everything taste better in the wilderness?
Fire, the primordial dance, continues.