Bushcraft wiki
Advertisement

One of the items often taught and learned for buschraft and survival is that of fire. There are numerous methods for starting a fire ranging from a simple match or lighter to friction fires, sparking rods, flint and steel and even compression fire starters.

There are many aspects to making a fire but all methods will share certain steps. More modern methods remove the first step of primitive fire starting. With primitive fire starting it is necessary that you create either a spark or coal in order to build it into a flame. If you use a sparking method it is necessary to catch the spark on easily combustible tender before adding it to a tinder bundle. For a coal you can add it straight to a tinder bundle. Once the spark or coal has been created the process is identical most modern methods.

It is recommended that all items after this point actually be the first items prepared so that they are readily available as you often will not have time to retrieve if they are not immediately available. Once the flame has been generated it should be applied to some form of tinder to keep the flame going and to build the flame. Once the tinder has ignited you should progress into small kindling and then into progressively larger kindling until you are able to burn firewood (usually considered 2 or more inches across).

Aditional pages needed:

tinder bundles

fire lays

primitive fire methods

fire triangle

Advertisement