How To Process Birch Bark For Fire Craft

Description

Krik of Black Owl Outdoors attempts to process some foraged birch bark and start a fire with a fire steel. Krik is no expert on the process. Watch as he attempts to make fire from birch bark.

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Tags: black owl outdoors,nature,camping,hiking,backpacking,survival,bushcraft,wilderness,forest,backcountry,Birch (Organism Classification),Tree (Ontology Class),Fire,Fire Craft,Fire Skills,Metal Match,Ferro Rod,Light My fire,Fire Steel

Video Transcription

save yourself turtles it's creek here with black owl outdoors today I'm going to be doing a video showing how to use birch bark as as a fire starting material and there's a lot of actually you can use birch bark and pretty much very beginning stages of fire-making as getting an ember as use the elders like kindling but today specifically we're going to be using as as getting the ember and hopefully getting a little bit of flame off that small shavings of birch bark to potentially ignite other peaches of other pieces of birch and small twigs

so what I have below me is the bigger pieces of bigger pieces of birch bark I came off of a dead down tree a little bit of moisture coming try to get this done hopefully it would be a good video to try to get done in the rain get some fire going these are bigger pieces of birch bark I have I came off of a dead and down tree not exactly sure what species of purchases there's a couple different ways you can use birch bark as I mentioned earlier and I'm going to take off a couple of these small shavings inside here these small little pearls if you will I'm going to try to transfer if I get a little bit of flame off this pile I'm going to I'm going to create I'm going to try to transfer that small flame to this and try to get a bigger flame off of it off of what I'm about to do here in a second so I'm going to get a little bit of this off before before I start getting the file shape down

now that the theory behind sort of using my knife to scrape a little pile is that there's a lot of oils inside the birch bark which makes it a great fire resource in general but but by getting this small fire our small um excuse me a little pile if you will and this will definitely give me an ember i'm going to use if i want to use a ferrocerium rod which is going to give me a pretty hot spark I'm gonna the process is I'm gonna take my knife I'm just gonna work this I'm wearing this in real time we're not gonna cut I want to show you um what this really looks like how long it takes things I learned along the way like I said I'm learning a lot as we're doing these videos i'm looking for people who are watching this videos just to you know explain a lot to me tell me a lop i'm just going to run my knife when they somewhat try to get down pass this darker of the thick this darker color on the bark and get down and see I'm sort of exposing this lighter color I'm going to keep doing this until I get a pretty nice pile and I'm going to put a spark to it we're going to see what happens and I'm going to work with it on the fly and see if I can get a fire going and if you know a lot about this you've done this method before please let me know I know people come to watch these videos look for knowledge that I'm sharing but I don't know everything I'm learning along the way and if you know more you know other things please please share that with me and with everyone else watching it and you know leave a comment leave a comment respond to people's comments if I can't get to them or study can't with us a little bit over here up on this apart and with any fire starting method like this as opposed to just using a lighter which works well and I you know recommend people carrying lighters in their kids so you have to go through this process is you really don't want to rush it and you really want to make sure you give yourself enough resources to work with you don't want to have a small pile of shavings and sort of put all your eggs in that basket hoping that little pile is gonna produce fire for you you really want to spend the time to make sure you have a decent amount to work with do a little bit more starting to look a good size we'll see how this works China some finer stuff i'm gonna use this more night the scandi grind because i know i'm probably you know your part gonna dull my knife doing this but the scandinavian grind are really easy to sharpen alright let's try that let's start with that little decent-sized pile being gentle don't tickle me please alright well my knife sheath a normal that lean on the ground in case it rains what my Ferro rod I'm gonna get this ready these little pieces of birch I'm gonna get that ready to go in case this does give me a little flame I want to have this stuff right next to me get this gon put some pressure I wonder if I want to get no I'm gonna get a green leaf away I want to transfer my power to this because this you can see this birch isn't sitting flat on the ground down here or i have this lane on the bark and i really don't want to take the chance and having this tip on me if I do get a flame so I'm going to transfer this to a leaf where I can control the better on the ground I feel better about that already syntom I'm gonna pile trike a spark to it shakes

so a few things I'm thinking right now one these shavings aren't fine enough which is why he's not taking this spark I'm gonna keep giving it a go i'm going to go back to the bark if I can't get this to produce any results doesn't go

I'm getting sparks down on it wait my brow gather myself think about what's happening and what's not happening oh all right I'm gonna go back to the birch I want to do now is I'm gonna put a little bit later pressure with my knife or in the bark I'm gonna try to get really fine dust now try the back of your knife I'm gonna try to leave you heard any suggestion 1mon try to do is just not going so deep you getting charges get real you're fine fine dust this is all part of learning and trying new skills is problem solving on the fly and putting less pressure on less pressure on the bark and finer shavings and see if that works and don't get frustrated I'm doing this on camera hey we're shooting you know one take one go trying to problem-solve and keep trying work through with what I think is working what's not working not get discouraged and just keep trying I had this to my pile and do a little bit more

see if that produces any different results

that didn't work with a different piece of birch and try be real funny video if I can't do this huh

tell them took my knife a little bit to play with that angle see if I'm getting any shaving is different let's do all these small tweaks of my head see how it goes more you try new skills the more you learn new things the better learner you become know how to learn things you can problem solve we can critically critically think on the fly alright I pick this up I'm position it just stop myself for a second get real intimate with the pile try to change my technique with throwing the sparks cuz I'm really doesn't look like I'm getting any sparks actually on it and these strikers I'm not a huge fan of ice so the spinal my knife is better but mm-hmm fires really making unifier making a really intimate thing let's try this now watch out Hannah do not let me catch you get out of here ya go keep going even you don't wanna be around if this works you try think this is food for you there we go there that look at that pow nice flame some other little pieces of birds Oh too slow nonetheless there's your member what went away she's out thanks for like a clump it's crazy mr. round exposed all that fine dust at sea with that girl I'm trying is sparking out a little bit of dust right there it's a little bit of dark brown dust right here whoo-oop persistence

completely elated right now can't begin to describe how happy I him doesn't want to stay hood though he's so human right now I'm just gonna keep working this far I took me this long i'm gonna try to get this fire i'm gonna try get sustainable fire on this in this video right now keep using this birch there we go I'm not trying to breathe any of that smoke either

I wasn't planning on keeping the fire this song but I took me that long to get it going I'm gonna rock this to the wheels fall

as fires go that's pretty good not out of the woods yet depending on the tillers on him but I'm really happy that's really good that's pretty good look at that going now just keep feeding kindling smaller pieces keep getting bigger to keep this going now so happy that work I'm glad you saw it took me a while i don't know if it's going to work had to keep going change my style think about was doing wrong part shavings to fire this Creek signing out back outdoors later turtles you