Handy Skills: Start a Campfire

It's been a while since I've done one of these! I thought this was a good one to post, having just returned from a camping trip last week and already dying to go on the next one.

Being able to start a fire is a super handy skill to have, more so when camping, but even when at someone's house with a fire pit of some sort. Most people who've never really started one think it's dead simple, only to fail miserably when they have to actually do it on their own. I know I did, at least.

Even if you've got fire starters and a deep fire pit to protect from any wind, if you don't do it right, it can take a lot more effort to get the fire going than is necessary. Ideally, I wanted to get to a point where I could start a fire with just a lighter (or matches) and not have to rely on anything else that I may either forget to take camping, or that I may run out of. When you go camping with friends who smoke, you're never short on lighters :)

The video that gave me all of the info that I needed was The Bird Nest and Tinder Bundle from Dave Canterbury (below). This is a great video about creating a bird nest to start a fire. From this video, you can skip the use of the char cloth to ignite the bundle and just use a Bic lighter, and I don't necessarily create my bird nest as big as in the video, but the practice of gathering or creating a bunch of fine, dry material for the bird nest - that'll catch fire quickly and easily - and gathering small sticks for kindling to then build on top of with larger logs is probably 95% of what I needed to reliably and consistently get a fire going. Another quick example can be seen in the Basic Camp Overnighter series too.

The Upside Down Fire is another good idea for getting a campfire going without needing much attention to maintain (while you go do other things), and I've started these a couple of times with great success. The biggest benefit to using this style of fire in winter is that the fire starts on a dry piece of wood, rather than on the ground, which may be wet or damp, and the above method of starting a fire with a bird nest is still relevant.