Translations:AY Honors/Fire Building & Camp Cookery/Answer Key 2/7/en

Kindling is a bit bigger than tinder. Pencil-sized sticks make excellent kindling, but if all your kindling is that size, you are going to need a lot of it. Sort it by diameter, and stack the smallest stuff over the tinder first, adding progressively larger pieces on top of that. You can arrange it in a tipi, log cabin, or even a ridge-pole and rafter arrangement. As you build up the kindling pile, add larger and larger pieces, but do not add anything with a diameter larger than 1.5 inches through - any bigger than that, and you are into the next size category. Stacking the kindling is perhaps the most important aspect of building a successful fire. If it is stacked too tightly, air cannot circulate and deliver heat from the tinder and it will not ignite. If you do not have enough of it, it will burn out before igniting the main fuel.