Fire Building: Odds & Ends

Series Summary

Roughing it in the great outdoors is one of the those activities that awakens something deep inside of us, reminding us of the relationship between man and Earth, reminding us to look at the greatness, the intricacy of the world around us. Many people in the post-industrial world are surrounded by the infrastructure of the city and must drive 30 miles out of town to find someplace semi-deserted and free from the concrete of man’s influence. Yet, even then some people even prefer to bring the city with them, only semi-roughing it with electricity, television, and air conditioning.

Whatever your preference, if you’re camping outdoors, you’ll probably need to know how to make a campfire at some point. Fire is an important tool to have for cooking food and purifying water, for warmth and light, and for protection from wild animals at night. In this free video series, learn the proper way to make a safe, long-burning campfire. Our expert will show you how to choose the right area in your campsite for the fire, how to build a fire pit, how to start a fire without matches, and how to properly put out the fire when you are ready to break camp and move on.

This series is an Equilibrio Films production.

Video Transcript

" Hi! My name is Dan and I’m here for Expert Village. Today we’re going to be talking about fires and fire starting. Before you start your fire, you want to make sure you have all of your materials prepped and ready. This would include having various fire-starting materials like a lighter, matches, or flint and steel. You also want to have pot grips if you’re going to be cooking, so you can pick up your pot, plenty of water to put your fire out, if needed be. You also want to have kindling. You can use pocket lint, birch bark, paper, and various other materials. You also want to have what you’re going to be using to feed the fire. Small twigs…moving up in size…a little bit larger….continuing to get bigger….finally full size logs. A hatchet comes in very useful, in case you need to split wood or cut something down. You want to make sure it has a good solid sheath on it for safety. A fire pan, you can use to make a small cooking fire in. You can always use this to cook. You put it on top of your fire and cook bread and cinnamon rolls in it. Leather gloves are also very important, so that you can reach and get a little bit closer to the fire. It’s also important to have non synthetic clothing; clothing that won’t burn if you get a spark landing on you. Those are a few of the basic items that you’ll need to start a little campfire. "