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Best wood to start a fire with.

Started by BenGill, January 29, 2014, 09:21:47 PM

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BenGill

I have always been interested in knowing how to start a fire by hand. Which wood would be the best to use to start a fire?

celliott

DRY wood  ;D

What do you mean by hand? Flint and steel, bow and drill, magnifying glass, there are many many ways to start a fire besides using a match or lighter.

For firebuild competitions we used dry cedar. it has oils in it that help ignition. Knife shavings would ignite with a match and ignite cedar "pencils" (thin split pieces)
Started plenty of fires winter camping, typically tried to find dry, dead softwood, and paper birch bark (taken off the ground, not peeled off live trees!)
Chris Elliott

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giant splinter

I Agree with Cedar being the best wood for getting a fire started, it works very well and will ignite with a match.
roll with it

beenthere

Ben, Welcome to the Forestry Forum

I whittle knife shavings off dry cedar, and light with a match.
But have to say, good 'farmer' matches that will light when struck on something other than the box are getting hard to find.
So the butane lighters are an option over matches. Used to get book matches about everywhere free, but don't see them anymore (or at least haven't noticed them).

Have small sticks of dry wood on top of the knife shavings, and add more as the fire builds.
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pineywoods

Guess you northern boys wouldn't know about fat lighter pine. Loaded with resin only slightly less flammable than gasoline burns hot and fast. It's a southern thing mostly
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BaldBob

Both Ponderosa Pine and even some Doug-fir will form "lighter wood" much like the fat lighter wood in southern pine. It is found in very old stumps in which all but the resin soaked wood has rotted away. I read somewhere that the old timers called it trading wood as they would trade it to Indian maidens for sexual favors. ;D

LeeB

Diamond brand, Strike Anywhere Kitchen Match. ;D ;D
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clww

Welcome to the Forestry Forum, BenGill. :)
I've been using cedar shake shingles this year. I got a pickup bed load last summer from someone that replaced the roof of their garage and posted these on the local CL.
If I'm roughing it out in the woods, I'd begin with a lichen called "old man's beard" for tinder. Follow up with pine shavings, then dry small twigs. Next in line would be dry pine cones and larger twigs. The key is dry wood, a good draft, and a safe place for the fire.
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thecfarm

pineywoods,I saw some of that fat lighter pine in a store up here. If not for the FF I would not of known what it was.
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Rockn H

You normally find lighter pine in the form of an old pine stump, but I've also got a few piles of it that were logs.  When conditions are right and a pine gets downed, all the sap wood will rot off leaving the rich pine heart and knots.   They're easy to spot if you look for "wings" like a winged elm only on the main trunk instead of limbs.   And we're stingy when we build a fire with it cause it doesn't take much.   

Magicman

Welcome to the Forestry Forum, BenGill. 

Note; Adding your location in your profile will help with answering questions, since location indicates which species are available to you.   :)

It's "fat pine" kindling for me.  It goes by many localized names such as lighter, fat lighter, lighter wood, etc.
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BradMarks

I grew up always calling it "fatwood", discolored pitch(resin) laden wood of douglas fir.  Not runny pitch or the dry white stuff, but dark saturated not really sticky wood.  Always a piece of it in the Elk pack.

chain

Quote from: Rockn H on January 30, 2014, 08:48:39 AM
You normally find lighter pine in the form of an old pine stump, but I've also got a few piles of it that were logs.  When conditions are right and a pine gets downed, all the sap wood will rot off leaving the rich pine heart and knots.   They're easy to spot if you look for "wings" like a winged elm only on the main trunk instead of limbs.   And we're stingy when we build a fire with it cause it doesn't take much.

We find what we call 'pitchpine', looks petrified, laying sometimes on ridgetops or west facing slopes, but getting rare these days. When I did find a piece I would saw it up in 3-4" blocks put in a potato sack, use for starter and torches. Native Americans as well as pioneers coveted this seasoned pine. One such pioneer told about shining mountain lion eyes and shooting deer at night from the light of a pine torch.

Rockn H, you made a very good description of it.

ESFted

I learned it as pine lighter here in VA.  Just wander the woods and look for old pine stumps that have rotted.  Kick them to loosen the center and pull it out of the ground.  Be careful...if you are near any body of water, moccasins (snake) will overwinter in those stumps.
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clww

Welcome to the Forestry Forum, ESFted. :)

Where are you located in VA?
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Mooseherder

Orange depot sells fat lightered wood in a yeller box now by the fire starters.
I bought some last October for the cabin.  It worked like charm.  I saw a youtube video where a guy was using Dryer lint as his starter.
It caught right away with him striking flint.  I would just use a match or lighter while I was in the house getting lint. :D

Dusty Rhodes

My brother makes starters with dryer lint.  Puts a ball of it into each of the twelve sections of a cardboard egg carton, pours melted wax over it an cuts the egg carton into 12 neat starters.  I have never tried to start one with a flint and steel but they light quick with a match.       

Claybraker

The best fat lighter comes from the SE coastal plain. There's a plant in Brunswick that uses pine stumps for all kinds of neat stuff.

http://www.pinovaholdings.com/pinova

It used to be called Hercules, but some outfit from Canada bought them and changed the name.

Al_Smith

Depends on the situation .Out in the boondocks you'll find the dryest wood will be on standing dead trees .Dead falls with limbs up off the ground etc.

In my case starting a fire in the wood stove I do a lot of wood working projects .Saw the scrap into small pieces .Some the size of lath strips . Save them in a covered shipping box originally used for robotic loaded parts for the auto industry.A little pine ,oak ,cherry all dry and kindle very easily . 

sstuartjones

I think big splinter got it correct with his last word...... Match!
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Chuck White

Ash, split up fine makes good kindling!
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David-L

If I'm in the woods, i use a birds nest which seem to be everywhere. they build them with twigs and grass. would not hit the woods without one stored on my person and they are lite to carry also. Low ones, say from a Warbler, etc.

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36 coupe

Quote from: BenGill on January 29, 2014, 09:21:47 PM
I have always been interested in knowing how to start a fire by hand. Which wood would be the best to use to start a fire?
The dead limbs on softwood trees are best.I collect pine cones from the white pine here.They have pitch in them that burns fast.

John Mc

The bark of white cedar makes good tinder.  If you pull it apart and rub it between your hands, it will eventually fray into a ball of fuzz that lights very easily.  I saw a guy light a fire with this in under a minute using a dry stick as a drill: rubbed his hands back and forth while holding the stick between them to twirl it. The point of the stick was pressed into a notch he cut in the dge of a small piece of dry white pine. The tinder was placed alongside the notch. A few spins and things heated up enough that tiny glowing embers falling out of the notch ignited the cedar bark tinder.

Impressive to watch. One of these days, I'll get around to trying it myself.
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SwampDonkey

That's the way I would do it if I had no modern tools (including a match). ;D
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1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

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