Essentials: Campfires
Tipi vs Log Cabin. Why not both?
Successful fires need a balance of fuel, flame, and oxygen. A fire smothered by fuel will smoke because of the lack of oxygen. A fire with enough fuel won’t light without sufficient flame. Roaring fires smolder and die when they run out of fuel.
Tinder & Flame
Once I discovered tinder I stopped bringing lighter fluid camping. Tinder is a dry material that immediately catches fire from sparks or a flame. I like to use a knife or hatchet to shave small strips of tinder off my firewood. Tinder can also be paper, sawdust, lint, a bird’s nest, pine needles, cattails, etc.
If my lighter is low on fuel or if I only have a few matches left I use a pencil sharpener to create finer wood shavings just in case.
Small Tipi of Kindling
Before I light the tinder pile I make a “tipi” of kindling. Kindling are slightly larger sticks that burn quickly with enough heat from a sustained flame. I use my hatchet to split logs into thinner sticks for kindling. Your kindling tipi should be stable enough to stand but thin enough to allow airflow.
In this photo I used wood shavings and a wax-lint firestarter as tinder. My fire started from a single match.
Log Cabin
Once kindling begins to catch fire you want to start stacking medium-sized logs on top of each other in a “Log Cabin” design. The logs should be bigger than kindling but not as thick as firewood. The Log Cabin design is optimal for airflow and building a campfire hot enough to burn large firewood logs for sustained warmth or burning down into a hot coal bed for cooking.
I typically split one piece of firewood into three or four-sized logs for my “cabin”.
Fire for Cooking vs Warmth
Your campfire is now lit and large flames flicker out of the log cabin. This fire is NOT ready for cooking just yet. Flames give flavor and nice char for grilling, but they tend to burn food with intense heat from inconsistent flare-ups. A perfect cooking “fire” for me is a bed of white-hot coals giving off consistent even heat.
We all love sitting by a warm campfire on a starry night. Big fires are easy to start but hard to maintain. The secret to keeping a big fire lit is by starting with minimal fuel (tinder, kindling, logs) and slowly burning larger pieces of firewood over time. This strategy will conserve fuel and maintain warmth for a longer period.
