Five Steps To The Perfect Fire
There's nothing quite like a roaring fire on a chilly evening. Whether you're holding a bonfire party in your back garden, setting a campfire on an evening in the woods or creating an atmosphere for a night on the beach, there are just five steps to the perfect blaze.
Step One: Gather Everything You'll Need
The perfect fire has a few key ingredients:
- An ignition source, such as a lighter or matches. A long-handled lighter with plenty of reach is best. If you want to start a fire without a standard source of ignition, however, there are several other things that can work in a pinch!
- Some tinder to catch the flame and ignite the kindling. You can buy firelighters to do this job perfectly, or you can use dead, dried plants and leaves to do the job naturally. Balled-up newspaper also works, though it's important not to use too much of this as you risk smothering the blaze.
- Kindling to really get the blaze going. This needs to be light and dry and have a large surface area--so it's best if your pieces are small. Twigs and little sticks work, or you can buy a bag of pre-cut kindling.
- Your main fuel source. This is where the larger, rougher logs and branches come in. It's easy to find good wood fuel out and about; fuel doesn't have to be quite as dry as tinder and kindling, though it's important that it isn't soaking wet!
Step Two: Lay Your Fire Well
If you're not using a fire pit, clear a circular area in the ground. If you're building a fire on a lawn, pull up the grass inside your circle and lay a ring of stones to work as a firebreak. On a beach, you can just make a well in the sand. Pile kindling up inside the pit, making sure it's loose enough to let air circulate inside. Put a few pieces of tinder on top of the kindling and light them. You might want to gently blow on them to encourage the flames along and get the kindling lit. As the kindling starts to burn, add a few more pieces till you're really starting to get a flame going.
Step Three: Get A Roaring Blaze
Get your smallest pieces of firewood--cut branches are a great choice for this--and arrange them in a conical shape a bit like a tepee over the nascent blaze. As the fire burns, they'll fall into the flames and catch naturally, and the extra air circulation makes this a great method. By the time you've done this, you should have a real fire up and running. Gradually scale up the firewood you're adding till the fire is able to take your largest logs.
Step Four: Tend Your Fire Carefully
As the evening wears on, you can keep adding bits of wood to the fire. Never put too much on at once, as you risk smothering the flames; if it seems like this might be about to happen, toss in a couple of bits of tinder and maybe add a little kindling nearby to really get things going again.
Step Five: Make Sure It's Entirely Out
At the end of the night, it's important to ensure you're not leaving anything dangerous behind you. Let the flames die down naturally, then make sure the last of them are entirely out: if you're on the beach, this is incredibly easy, as one of the best ways to extinguish a fire like this is to dump a lot of sand on top of it. In other settings you can use earth or simply wait up till there's no more fuel to burn. Don't try to use water unless all you have left is hot ashes--this is rarely as effective as you imagine it will be!
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