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Tips On Starting A Campfire

March 2, 2008

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How is it that one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
~Author Unknown

Sometimes it seems so easy to get a campfire going and other times not even a full box of matches can get the job done. Here are some tips on starting a campfire.

Paper:

If you asked five different people, you would probably get five different answers on what is the best way crumple, rip, fold or tear your paper when starting a camp fire. Each way may have it’s own pros and cons, but here are the two ways that I have found that work the best.

Newspaper works the best and is usually readily available around the house. Take a sheet of the newspaper and tear it in half. If it’s a larger piece tear it into 3 or 4 pieces.

Lightly crumple each piece into small round balls about the size of a baseball. Use these crumpled pieces of paper and build a small pyramid shaped pile in the center of your campfire pit.

Another way that works very well is to take the newspaper and tear several pieces at the same time into strips about one inch wide. Take these strips and criss-cross them to make a pile in the center of the campfire pit.

Kindling:

If you can, pick up a bundle or two of dry kindling on your way to the campground. If you find yourself without any kindling you can go around and gather up some small twigs and branches that have fallen on the ground as these will also work well as kindling.

Starting on the outside of the paper start stacking the kindling starting with two pieces on either side and then placing two more pieces on top of the first two above and below the paper. This will allow air to flow through the kindling and allow the paper to burn.

Once you have the kindling at the same height as the paper start stacking more kindling over the top of the paper criss-crossing them to make a roof like structure.

Fire:

You didn’t think we were going to forget the most important part, did you? :-)

I always make sure that I have several propane lighters on hand as these work really well for starting your campfire and other propane devices as well.

After you get the fire going, keep placing kindling and smaller pieces of wood onto the fire until you have a good bed of hot colas.

It’s now up to you how big you want your fire to be. ;-)
  

Happy Camping :-)

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