Fire Lighting Fundamentals - Pulling It All Together

Fire Lighting Fundamentals - Pulling It All Together by Paul Kirtley

Winter Fire-lighting In The North Woods

Over the past few years I have created a number of tutorial articles and videos on fire techniques relevant to the north woods or northern forest in winter.

Here I’d like to pull together all of these threads into one coherent resource, along with some additional material and answers to FAQs.

The main feature is the video above, which you should watch first. Even if you’ve seen this video before on my YouTube channel, this is actually a shiny new “remastered” version of the video.

In this video I discuss and demonstrate fire lighting techniques that are simple, straightforward and reliable in cold conditions.

In particular you’ll see that I cover:

 two key natural firelighting materials found in the boreal forest;  combining natural materials for winter fire lays;  key preparations and considerations you need to make for failsafe winter fire lighting.

And for a bit of fun, watch right to the end for the deleted scenes….

In the rest of this post below, I go into more detail on some of the techniques as well as expanding on some others. I’ve drawn together lots of related material on this blog, which I hope you can see forms a coherent whole and, as such, I hope this serves you well in your winter fire-lighting endeavours.

Particularly Useful Tree Species For Winter Fire-Lighting

Spruces (Picea) and birch (Betula) are common and widespread northern hemisphere species, particularly in the northern temperate and boreal zones. They also have properties which make them useful for starting fires. Medium sized spruce trees typically have a mass of small, dead twigs near the base of their trunk. These are not only an ideal diameter for kindling, they contain resin and are usually dry due to the protection from dense green foliage above.

Birch bark contains oils which not only make it flammable but also act as a waterproofing agent. Thus birch bark is an excellent ready-made natural fire-lighter. Further because the bark of birch has a laminate structure of fine, thin layers the bark can be scraped up with a sharp edge to create fine shavings and dust, which will readily ignite from a spark.

The following video goes into more detail on how to prepare birch bark to readily accept sparks:

If you don’t already have access to the 20 free videos mentioned in the video above, get them here.

Pines (Pinus) are another common and widespread genus, which if found dead, dry and standing can make excellent splints for fire lighting, partly because it splits relatively easily in sections between knots as well as it containing a good amount of oleoresin/turpentine. Feathersticks: Very Suited To Winter Fire-Lighting

Straight-grained pine also makes an excellent basis for feathersticks. These are not covered in the above videos but they work well in such an environment and provide another reliable means of lighting fires, albeit requiring a sharp cutting tool and the requisite skill.

This is a featherstick made from straight-grained pine. Photo: Paul Kirtley. Click here to read my article on Lighting A Fire With Feathersticks

Lichens For Fire-Lighting

There are many species of wispy, beard-like lichens which festoon trees in the usnea, bryoria and alectoria genera. It is one of these that I use in the main feature video above. When dry, beard-like tree lichens such as this are very useful for fire-lighting. Photo: Paul Kirtley.

Bracket Fungi For Fire-Lighting

As good students of bushcraft know, there are a number of excellent tinder fungi. Horses hoof fungus, Fomes fomentarius is one of the best. It grows in the northern woods on birch. Fomes fomentarius is a tinder fungus found growing in birch in the boreal forest. Photo: Paul Kirtley.

The traditional method of preparing Fomes for firelighting with flint and steel or even flint and iron pyrites is a little involved. It is much easier with a modern Firesteel (ferro rod).

Click here to read about The Easy Way To Use Fomes Fomentarius As Tinder

Creating Large Sparks With Your FireSteel

Over the last decade or so, the Swedish FireSteel, or ferro rod, has gone from being an obscure novelty to a ubiquitous fire-lighting gadget on sale in every camping store.

If you don’t already own one, you can buy one here.

Even so, most people’s technique can be refined by learning how to generate really big sparks with them. The typical action most people make is to generate a diffuse shower of sparks. This will work with many materials. For example, the lichens mentioned above, when teased out like cotton wool, accept a shower of sparks quite readily.

Other potential forms of initial fuel, however, need a more concentrated heat source. If you can create a large, concentrated spark with your FireSteel, then you have more options available to you (e.g. the trama layer of some bracket fungi such as Fomes fomentarius mentioned above). The following video goes into detail on the required technique for generating large, concentrated sparks. It’s the method I use in the top video above too but the following video shows the specifics of the technique much more clearly.

If you don’t already have access to the 20 free videos mentioned in the video above, get them here.

Common Questions About Winter Fire-Lighting And Related Techniques And Equipment

I’ve had the above videos in various places, including YouTube as well as here on this blog, before bringing them all together on this one page.

Some of the common questions I receive are below with answers.

Can you tell me more about your winter clothing?

Yes! You can read more about it in the following couple of articles:

Winter Clothing For The Northern Wilderness Part 1 (Thermal Layers And Shell Clothing)

Winter Clothing For The Northern Wilderness Part 2 (Footwear, Handwear and Headwear)

You can also read about my quest to find my perfect set of winter mittens: http://paulkirtley.co.uk/2014/hestra-bivak-lovikka-quest-perfect-winter-hand-wear/

What knife are you using in your videos?

The knife I’m using is a knife of my own design, made by Raven Armoury. In the videos above it is the prototype PK1 knife that I’m using and you can read more about its development in the article below:

The Raven PK1: Evolution Of A Knife

What axe do you take winter camping?

I think the following video and article gives a good overview of my thoughts:

Axe Choice For The Northern Forest

You mention digging down to the ground – what type of snow shovel do you use?

I talk about choosing and using a snow shovel effectively in the following post (with video):

Choosing And Using A Snow Shovel For Winter Camping And Travel

How long does it take before a new Firesteel starts producing some proper sparks?

When the FireSteel is new it is coated with a protective lacquer, which helps prevent it oxidising while in storage. With a couple of scrapes, you can remove this from the area of the steel you want to strike the spark (it will go from dull to shiny).

Using the FireSteel technique from your video I can shave off material but no spark…why? If you are removing metal from the FireSteel but not attaining sparks, then the issue is not pressure but speed. Increase the speed of your scrape while maintaining the pressure. There is a point at which this will create a spark. Too slow and it won’t, however much you dig in.

I’m not sure about using the left hand thumb to push the knife. Doesn’t it expose it to the blade too much if you slip?

It’s actually the finger underneath which is much more likely to be cut if you mess up this technique. Make sure the pressure is largely parallel to the FireSteel, not too much downwards towards your finger. Also make sure you keep the knife under good control towards the end of the FireSteel.

What would you say about how your Firesteel technique only uses a small part of the firesteel; is this a waste?

Well you’ll wear down the end more quickly than the rest but it does not waste the rest because once the end is worn down you just move back and do the same further up the steel. The rod effectively becomes shorter but you still use all the material, just in a different order to scraping down the full length on each strike.

Doesn’t using your knife to spark the ferro rod damage the finely honed edge? And doesn’t the temperature of the sparks damage the temper of your blade?

I am using the back of the knife, not the finely honed edge of the knife, so there will be no damage to the edge. Second, the spark is not changing the temper of the knife. You need to think about not just temperature but also the amount of energy involved. While the temperature is high (up to 3,000 degrees Celsius), the amount of heat energy is very, very small. Third, the spark is not sparking onto the blade but largely onto the material beneath it.

Related Material On Paul Kirtley’s Blog

How To Light A Campfire With One Match

How To Split Firewood On Snow: Key Axe Techniques

How To Make Fantastic Feathersticks

Winter Magic: Return To The Northern Forest

An Arctic Lean-To Revisited

How To Live In A Heated Tent