Getting started in bushcraft: Fire

Description

In this Video i Talk through some of the hings to consider when thinking about lighting a fire for use in bushcraft, or the outdoors in general. Below is the link to some videos that I have already filmed demonstrating a variety of fire lighting techniques

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofPcGE9NioE&list=PLhI7SRLHyPexeGn7rq3xa2w3ZsGIiKwXK

Tags: Bushcraft,survival,ray mears,bear grylls,camping,how to,Fire (Quotation Subject),Survival Skills (TV Genre),outdooors,beginners

Video Transcription

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alright guys so today we're going to be doing our third video in getting started in bushcraft and today's video is going to be all about fire and fire lighting throughout the course this video I'm not going to be doing any demonstrations of techniques for violating what I'm going to do is just talk to you and give you some ideas and things to consider when getting started in fire if you're already into bushcraft and push cross or do your thing a lot of this will be old news to you but if you're just getting started it's quite handy to consider a few bits and pieces when thinking about lighting your fire so the first thing to consider is first off do you need a fire you know we don't always require a fire when we're doing bushcraft if you just out for the day and you've already got all your food precooked everything with you is it warm you probably don't need a fire it is nice to have one going however so first of all consider if you really need a fire remember that fires consume natural resources and you'll repeatedly go into the same spot you don't want to eat up all those resources too quickly secondly and really importantly are you allowed to build a fire in that your location and I'm not going to go too much into the laws and violating so I know that I've got subscribers from all over the world I've got views from all over the world so laws in your area may be different or similar to Mars where I am but consider that do you have permission is illegal for you to light a fire thirdly is it safe for you to build a fire in that location what type of ground are you on your we need to consider this a lot parts of UK have Pete ground on and Pete is a highly flammable resource as the ground dries out you can start a peat fire this is really bad you know there's plenty of videos out there on people who come across these Pete players themselves and they're quite difficult to pull out and potentially really dangerous for your environment in the forest if you're lonely dry and arid location is it safe for you to build a fire without starting a brush fire you know you really don't want to be doing anything like that and the fourth consideration once you've taken all three of those in is what do you intend for your fighter to provide for you and you know is it a small fire for a brew doing a big fire to keep you warm that kind of brings me to my second point about fire fire is really important in bosch craft it's are absolutely invaluable and incredible resource fire can provide more than just warmth for us so whilst it does provide warmth to keepers obviously warm in the winter once on a cold day it can also help us to cook our food food that we otherwise wouldn't be able to eat it can help us to purify our water and clean it and what we otherwise wouldn't be able to drink but as a few more subtle uses as well and quite often undervalue uses fire can help us to craft certain tools or create certain things like the wood it can be it can be used to harden and wooden spikes for tent pegs it can be used to make Greenwood more malleable for making things like bowls and bowls or anything that requires a bent piece of wood so you can hit the green within the fire and make it more pliable that way the ash from the fire is also useful we can use ash to create and lie solutions fire getting an initial fire going can help you make a fire the next day by crafting things like char cloth or char material or even using that bite and transporting it to somewhere else if you have the relevant lines on how to do this well the more subtle uses of finite I think I'm it has it has some psychological benefits walls as well I've noticed on group camps if there's a fire everyone kind of gravitate to that single fire especially at nighttime when it's providing us with illumination it becomes a real a real whore social area for people to interact round mainly because that's what the breeze and the food down the warmth especially in the nighttime here in the UK gets very very cold at night even the summer and but when you're on your own fire provides you not only with that illumination but it it turns your small camp your temporary camp on your permanent camp more into a home for you it provides you with a center you know it's somewhere to work around it could provide an awful operas failure is an absolutely invaluable resource I haven't covered all the uses of fire here you know that's something for you to explore and examine yourself

all is considered the first thing you've got to do is how are you going to let your fire how you how you going to actually ignite your fire so fire requires three things wrong to burn it requires a source of heat it requires oxygen and it requires fuel I tend to consider fuel first am I in an area which will provide me with an adequate amount of fuel for the fire that I need is the woodland big enough for it can the woodland support my fire you don't want to go into a place and take away all the dead dry wood because that is habitat space for various creatures particularly things like oh just rearranged they have sprained my ankle a little bit so particularly for things like insects bugs small mammals you know that that would isn't just for us it has a wire implication so examine your worry do you have subsequent video do you have sufficient firewood most places most woodlands do have sufficient firewood but it's just something to be aware of also do you have an adequate form of tinder in that area so tinder is you know you first stage a few or fuels in three stages the first people being your tender do you have tinder that is adequate to take your form of ignition and turn it from just a heat source into a flame you then require your kindling do you have sufficient kindling and then you need to general larger fuel for your finer do you have all of that available to you and that consideration really comes in with with you know what method of violating Lee actually use so we have six forms of ignition and a couple of weeks don't we get using bushcraft I'll come to them a little bit later but the six forms of ignition our percussion so things like a flint and steel we have friction so bold your hand drill ferrocerium rod they require friction we've got solar fire lighting so things like anything that can be crafted into a lens or pre-made lens can be used to harness the power of the Sun to ignite your fuel

we also have pressure so a slam rod or a pit fire piston and the two that don't get used quite as often in bushcraft are electrical fire lighting so you know using something like a battery on a piece of wire wall and also chemical ignition those to tend to be used more insulin survival situations or by the preppers not so much a bushcraft I mean there's no harm in using them you just don't really come across a very often because they don't require natural resources to do this in terms of forms of ignition items carrying my pack at least three forms with me so generally my main doty forms of ignition are one form of friction like at least one form of friction violatin so the ubiquitous ferrocerium rod really really useful in Bosh craft I'd kind of never leave home without mine and I've also got my knowledge base form so handrail bodrum cloud and fire plough and I carry a form of solar ignition with me as well using the fall of us a small Fresnel lens and usually a bit later as well which is kind of I suppose where chemical ignition meets friction ignition so I I keep them with me you know it's useful to carry a form of ignition with you with your knowledge building up it is possible to go out into the woods with no forms of ignition and craft yourself something out there in order to get your fire going we're not going to go into that too much today that that won't be given a dedicated video at some point so once you've considered your form of ignition and whether you've got relevant fuel to go with that fall of ignition we've got the two main parts of our fire triangle they're ready to go and the third part of fire triangle is oxygen oxygen i feel is something that is often left out when considering fire even people who are really knowledgeable often don't consider oh is my fire going to be able to breathe correctly and this comes down to structuring your fire there's a whole host of fire structures out there and in fact I came to find that everyone has Oh way of lighting and structuring the fire you they have their own process for it if your fire isn't structured correctly as you can see minuses fallen a little bit here and it started pumping out much more smoke and because that structure has collapsed a little bit my fire isn't getting the relevant amount of oxygen that it needs to burn so structure new fire comes in with one of our first considerations which is what is my fire going to do the structure of a fire will affect how you wanted to do its job that you set out for it is it going to be for heating your whole body in which case you need quite a long fire is it going to be specifically for elimination in which case you need a very quick bright burning fire is it going to be for cooking in which case you need it to burn slightly slower all these things need to be considered when you're thinking about lighting your fire with those considerations in mind it's then time to move on and actually get your fire going look at your conditions look at your environment look at your surroundings you know choose your source of ignition based on what the weather's doing if it's absolutely chuck it down with rain and you haven't gotten what shelter your bow drill is going to be difficult to use not impossible but difficult do you have an easier way of getting your fire going in that if you do use that if you're out there to practice specifically getting your bow drill to work in challenging conditions then use your bow drill just you know take everything into consideration your fire is really valuable to you once you've made these considerations and it's time for you to start preparing your fire now a key thing that I always teach when teaching fire lighting is take your time do not rush your fire if you rush it it's much easier to get your fire wrong take your time with it put a decent amount of care and attention to it when you first starting out this can be quite hard work it can be quite a drawn-out process but as your knowledge and experience improves the preparation of your fire really does become kind of second nature to you prepare your fire area clear the ground around you and always make sure you go down to bare earth so proper soil you know to prevent any spread unwanted spread of your fire once all that is done you can start gathering your resources for lighting fires and gather your tinder gather your kindling and then gather your larger fuel it's much easier to gather your larger fuel before you even started the fire to make sure that you've got a sufficient amount of it learn methods of processing that larger firewood remember always split wood will burn better than dry wood and of course take into consideration the types of wood that you're planning on burning different woods burn in different ways so for example Oakwood will burn quite slowly but very very hot and give you very good coals but in X from my experience I've found that it doesn't really give me an abundance of flames it's excellent for cooking on but not great for illumination but it does give you a lot of heat pine on the other hand burns very very quickly and it gives you a lot of flames it's very easy to get it burning but it requires you know much more fuel and also be aware certain woods will affect your cookware slightly differently so going back to Pine it's very subtle burning and it will make all your pots and stuff black if you want to keep them nice and shiny probably best to avoid the pine and this is a really interesting thing about violating violating is a fundamental skill in bushcraft but what it does is it allows us to open our eyes to the greater implications of using wood and natural resources by examining what wood burns in what way and you know it gets us to look at the properties of that wood why does it burn in a certain way why is certain wood harder to process and others does some of its split nicely is sort of it really difficult to break it really opens your eyes to it so whenever you're special when you're starting out examine the wood you know experiment with different types of wood when you're doing this you know learn how to learn the best ways to find dry wood what types of tree provides certain types of fungus in terms of actually igniting your fire all these things get drawn together and as I keep banging on but I keep saying it all comes down to that knowledge finally a few tips when getting started with with violating you know practice if you is the first time you've ever written a fire lit there if it's the first time you've ever lit a fire practice on you know a calm still dry warmest day with decent would even take some pre drive mode out with you and just practice using it that way once you've mastered the art of actually lighting your fire and keeping it going experiment with ways to make your fire more sustainable you know ways that require less wood to burn because for one it uses less more than two if you can Late Late what I like to call a sustainable fire you save yourself a lot of work and you can get a lot more done and in this way you can learn more when yet when you're out outdoors once you've mastered all of this either learn a few different ways of getting the fire going and the master them or use the same technique in harsher conditions finally what I'd like to do is give you what I think are a few useful tips and when getting started with your fire light in so if it's the first time you've ever gone out and and practice lighting a fire practice in suitable conditions for fire lighting you know obviously the rain and the wind make file item much more difficult now because your first time like the fire those aren't good conditions to practice in so if it's your first day find somewhere dry warm and still to practice you know you can practice it in your garden but you know with the walls around you or you can practice it out in the woods on a good day don't go straight out into them in the middle of a blizzard in high winds when it on what everything's wet and practice because that's just gonna be really frustrating for you you know secondly take your time with your fire you don't have to rush it I find a lot of TV shows and TV programs even a lot of bushcraft videos on YouTube my own included can be a little bit misleading when it comes to violating because they make it look very very quick and very easy with the way that it's edited violating can actually be quite a drawn-out process you've got we established that fire and take care of it when it's small so take your time with it this process speeds up a little bit with

and knowledge but initially take your time with it be patient thirdly don't just master one form of violating practice one initially and then learn to really master that skill practice it in different conditions once you've got the hang of doing it in ideal conditions but once you've done that experiment with different forms of violating and this is really key being able to do one form of violating masterfully and perfectly it's all well and good but on occasion certain forms of violating aren't going to be open to you for example if you've mastered like it lighting a fire with an abundance of Natural Resources it yet you can find anywhere but you're using your ferrocerium rod and you go out for a five-day hiking trip and you've forgotten your fire ferrocerium rod well you're going to be about a fire then but if you've mastered various forms of this fire lighting a lot more possibilities are going to be open to you and in this way you learn more about bushcraft in general as well so practice practice practice take things in remember stuff you know if something worked if something works easier one day than it did the day before try and find out why it's done that build up build different types of fires building for different jobs experiment with what your fire can do for you fires are a big big learning process I'm very sorry that the smoke I've just realized it's been in front of the camera this whole time but the main thing is not much to see I'm not demonstrating so it's not a huge huge issue and lastly I hope this video has been good to you I know I've not demonstrated much it's just been me talking at the camera what I was aiming to do is give you a little bit of food for thought on your your fire lighting processes what I'm going to do subsequent to this video's I'm going to start doing dedicated forms of firelight and dedicate videos to each form of fire lighting and then I'm going to look at different structures of fire and I felt like each form and each method really deserved its own video in depth for you guys to have a look at so i hope you you kind of okay with that the next video in this series of getting started in bushcraft is going to be looking at what equipment to carry with you and I've done a bit of a kind of experiment with this which I'm hoping to demonstrate so please keep watching for that because it's quite a big thing don't fall into the the whole videos going to be back don't fall into the kit trap I hope you've enjoyed this video I hope it's been useful for to you as always please drop me a comment let me know your thoughts and opinions on this please like and subscribe if you've enjoyed the video if you haven't liked the video don't just hit that dislike button please tell me why because I want to provide decent information to you guys as always thank you all for watching your support and everything is really really appreciated and please stay tuned for more information thanks guys