Translations:AY Honors/Fire Building & Camp Cookery/Answer Key 2/9/en

Air

It might seem that you would need to do nothing to make sure that your fire has a good air supply - after all, air is all around us. But a fire needs lots of air, and the way the fuel is stacked can affect this greatly. Do not pack the fuel tightly. Kindling should be stacked such that the spaces between pieces are equal to the width of the pieces (on average). In other words, the kindling pile should be about 50% air and 50% wood by volume. These gaps will allow the flames to get in between and burn all the kindling, thus igniting the larger fuel logs. When you add logs to the fire, make sure there's at least a one-inch gap between each piece. Otherwise, you will cut off the air supply and the fire will die down without burning all the fuel.

Heat

Heat is initially added to the fuel and air with a match, lighter, or other fire lighting device. If using primitive lighting techniques, the tinder is lit first, and then transferred into the kindling pile. Heat is transferred from the match (or spark) to the tinder, and then from the tinder to the kindling, from the kindling to the main fuel, and finally, the heat from the main fuel will be sufficient to maintain the fire, igniting additional fuel (and sometimes drying it out) as it is added. To get a fire to die down, separate the logs so that their heat is spread out. To burn all the fuel, keep pushing the unburnt ends of logs to the center to concentrate the heat (but do maintain some distance between the logs to allow air in).