Tinder
I meet many people who think that making fire is a mysterious, difficult thing that others can do, but they can’t. I enjoy demystifying the process and showing them that with good preparation and a sound understanding of materials, anyone can make a fire – even in the pouring rain! Make sure you minimize the impact of your fire: use dead and fallen wood, ensure that your fire will not cause a hazard and clean your site thoroughly when you leave your camp.
Take your time collecting wood for your fire and spend some time sorting your wood into piles based on their thickness.
At this point it is useful to differentiate between the different types of materials you will collect:
Tinder: less than a matchstick in diameter; dry thin sticks or fluffy material.
Kindling: bigger sticks; between the width of a matchstick to a pencil.
Fuel wood: anything bigger than the width of a pencil.
Sticks you use for your fire should make a satisfying crack as they snap, telling you they are dead and dry, or ‘seasoned’. Let’s focus now on which tree species we should look for when selecting wood for our fires.
Kindling
Fuel wood
Rhododendron
Rhododendron and laburnum give off a dangerous, toxic smoke so are best avoided.
Willow doesn’t burn well but is ideal for the bow drill fire-lighting method.
These burn hot and long due to their density and are the ideal firewood. They tend to be deciduous (with leaves that fall in autumn), and include ash, oak, elm and hawthorn – just a small selection of hardwoods that make great firewood.
One drawback of hardwoods is that they require more seasoning (drying) than softwoods. There are exceptions to this rule including ash, which can be burnt whilst still fresh and ‘green’.
Softwoods such as cedar, pine and fir are less dense than hardwoods and so light and burn quicker. This makes them good kindling but because they burn so quickly they are not ideal for fuel wood unless it is all you have.
Most softwoods are evergreen and can be identified by their needles and cones that are retained all year round, although there are exceptions, such as larch, which is deciduous.
Softwoods require less seasoning and many produce a lovely aroma when burned.
But don’t forget some ‘hard’ woods, such as balsa, are softer than most softwoods; whereas ‘soft’ woods, such as yew, are actually very hard.
