How to Build a Camp Fire

Video Transcript

"Hi! I'm going to talk to you about how to build a good fire. It is pretty simple actually. Fire is kind of like a person. It needs to breathe so you start with a good tender or fire starter. Birch bark works best but if you can't get birth bark, small twigs and some dead leaves will work as long as they are dry. Just make sure they are dry. If it snaps, it's good. If it doesn't snap, scrap it. So start by just setting off your tenders. You don't need a lot of birch bark so take a little, shred it up in a little ball. I like to do it this way. You can save that for later so you don't have to take it off another tree and just kind of put your smaller stuff on top here and spread it out evenly. You'll want some medium size stuff. Take that and snap that up small enough and make sure you get the smallest stuff first. They will light the best. Now at this point, you would probably want to light it so that way it will start going. If you suffocate it with the big stuff now, there is no way it will light. So at this point I would light it and I would keep adding on big larger, big larger and eventually I would put on these larger sticks like so. Then once the fire got going, I would put these stick on here and maybe get a little more smaller stuff to add on to keep it going hot and just kind of criss cross your sticks while you are putting on a fire. Once its going, these two burn down, put another one on and this one burns down. Throw another one on. Just keep throwing it on like that. Just make sure they are kind of criss crossed and have a lot of room to get air underneath so that way you can bring in the oxygen and that will keep the fire going really good. To do that, you will have a nice fire. Make sure it is contained and that you can keep it under control and make sure to check at the ranger station or the billboard at the bottom to make sure fires are allowed at that time of the year. So be safe with your fire. Build it nice and it will be a nice cheery fire. "