How to Build A Campfire

Are you anxious on camping this summer? Do you have everything you need for that perfect camp night? How about do you know how to build a campfire? I don't mean one that you throw sticks into a pit and try to light some twigs to get a nice roaring campfire. I mean one that will continue to burn for a long time and requires very little maitenance.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Things You’ll Need:

• small tube of petroleum jelly
• cotton balls or dryer lint (yes the stuff that your dryer leaves after running it)
• a small box of matches
• twigs
• sticks
• larger sticks
• logs
• ax
• tarp (optional)
• twine (optional)

1. Start by collecting the different sizes of wood for your fire and separate them into different piles by size: twigs, small sticks, larger sticks, and logs.
2. Now in a fire pit start by putting petroleum jelly on the cotton balls and little on the twigs... (Since the petroleum jelly is flamable it helps the fire from the match catch fire on the cotton balls and twigs.)
3. Put a handful of cotton balls into a ball in the middle of the fire pit. Add some dryer lint and dry leaves around the cotton balls then layer many twigs around in the form of a teepee.
4. Light the dry material with your matches and blow into the middle of the fire area.
5. As the fire begins to grow start to layer the larger pieces of wood in the form of a teepee on the fire. Start adding the small sticks in the form of a teepee around the fire, then do the same with the larger sticks and finally when the fire has grown the logs.

Tips & Warnings

• Once the fire has grown to burn the logs, at this point all it needs is maitenance by adding more logs occassionally.
• If it looks like it is going to rain a good idea is going to be to bring a tarp and tie each end of the tarp to a tree with twine over the fire pit.
• You can use the ax to collect additional fire wood.
• Please supervise children around the fire.