Fire Expertise - 10 Minute Survival

On 10 Minute Survival today, I talk about fire; how to light it and how to maintain it. 

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Transcript

Steve Marvell: 0:01

Hi there, my name is Steve Marvell. And this is crucial. So Apple podcast. And here we go with another 10 minute survival programme. And this is going to be about fire. Fire is difficult. No matter what anybody says. You can have a lighter, you can have matches, you can have a steel, you can have whatever you want. Fire is difficult, fire is difficult to light. Fire is difficult to maintain. Fire is difficult to maintain through the night. And don't let anybody say otherwise. That is to say we're talking about fire in the wild. We're not talking about some beautifully seasoned logs and beautiful kindling in your in woodburner. Though that can actually be quite hard itself. Fire outdoor fire is a practised skill. It's a practice skill, net, no matter whether or not it's dry. But yeah, practising it in the dark and the wet. And the cold is a completely different kettle of fish. Let me just quickly explain how file works. Many people will have been with familiar with the fire triangle, that is to say, the three ingredients of fire, which you need in order to, to to have one it is utterly, utterly incomplete. However, it consists of oxygen, heat and fuel. And this is this, it's true to say that if you remove the fuel, it's going to go out if you remove the oxygen is gonna go out. And if you remove the heat, it's gonna go out. But

Unknown: 2:16

it's not the whole story. The story of the heat

Steve Marvell: 2:20

is you need enough heat to light the fuel that you need to fuel to make the heat. And this is the most important cycle in a fire to maintain a fire, you didn't need a fire that adds enough heat to heat the fuel that you're going to put on to such a temperature that they've their Flashpoint set offensively that it will catch fire it will combust to use the correct terminology. You want complete combustion that is to say it's on fire rather than smoking away. The reason you get smoke is because of incomplete combustion. And the reason you might get incomplete combustion is things like putting a wet log on a fire. It's in difficult enough to have enough heat to light a log, let alone having enough heat to heat to set fire to a wet low log. A wet log in order to set fire to it needs to be dehydrated. In fact, all board needs to be dehydrated. Seasoned light sees didn't work in a sawmill might have a word can send of 20% or 10% or something like that. A wet log could be loads and loads and loads of water which you totally have to dehydrate the log in order to let it to catch fire. This this is a huge problem. If you're trying to light a fire in an unknown location where all you got is the odd wet log the odd live live ash for instance you can you can use a live fire and so maintaining the fire is hard enough. Yes, if you've got a great sodding bonfire or fossil forest fire or house fire, it's generally enough heat to low light anything. Yeah. But maintaining of a sort of comfort level fire a survival level fire If you don't want to go collecting the so all of the wood in the forest to make a fire, which is like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, it's just not what what you're looking for looking for a fire, that heats the you enough to survive, not so big that you have to sit miles away from it, that is the efficiency problem that is it. That is a not not use good use of fire would the energy to go and collect wood, etc, etc. So we know we now know how to keep a fire going. The oxygen component is if if it's all too tight, then you're going to have a problem. So you have to have things slightly loose enough that it keeps keeps going, you can see that if you're if you're using two logs to keep things together or stones or something like that, you'll be able to see what's going on, you can park your logs. However, let's get the train three in the room sorted and that is lighting a fire. If you work out, work backwards from a lit fire. To have a lit fire, you need to have a smaller, small hot fire. And in order to make a small hot fire, you need a smaller, hot fire. The reason is, when you light something with like matches, it is irrespective of the Nishan sauce you've got when you light a fire with a lighter for instance, you can't just light a log. There's there's not enough heat from your lighter. There is however, enough heat to light, a piece of paper and I scrunched up piece of paper. So there's lots and lots of oxygen going through there. And that is enough heat because there's quite a lot of in Farish short lived amount of time to relight a bunch of skinny twigs, which actually create quite a lot of heat, you couldn't have a fire like this all night, you'd be banging sticks on it continuously. So what you need to do is then light some slightly bigger tweaks, slightly bigger tweaks and slightly bigger tweaks. And what you'll find is you have to put less twigs on with more slowly more slowly. And so what you ultimately end up with is twigs that are burning at a cent sensible rate. And finally, you put some branches on and move. Then put your logs on, Gus, eight minutes, get a wiggle on Marvel. Some of the basic things that people fail due to when lighting a fire is they don't have enough little things like the size of the pile of little things. And they don't have continuity in that they have a big gap. So we got very, very small things. And then this great big gap to enormous things. You need a continuous flow of sizes, and you need a lot of all of them such that you liked your Tinder. You then you put your now you get a get a wiggle on, you get your new new sort of sprinkle and it's like spaghetti almost. You sprinkle your next one on you spread sprinkle your net lot Lexa on. Don't faff around this is all prepared, mentally rehearsed. Next one next set, next set next set, bigger things, bigger things, bigger things if this flames coming off the top you are you're wasting them, get get them on. And ultimately, you'll get there but it's a practice skill. And you must, must, must practice and you must must must subscribe to this podcast because there's loads and loads of 10 minutes for survival coming up. And in the last 20 seconds. I'm just going to say don't light a pyramid fire. It just doesn't work. Pyramid fires light because people feed it rich, completely continuously. So light fires different Please learn to light fires differently, learn to light fires better. I'm going to post this on Facebook. So if anybody wants to continue this discussion, then crucial survival training Facebook page, I'm going to post a link to this. Let's have a discussion about it. I can draw some pictures. And in fact, the pictures will be in the book. And if you're interested in the book, go and find me, Steve Marvell, two L's on Facebook, via the crucial survival training website, Facebook page, if you like, and let's talk about the book if you want to get involved in the book, proofreading or whatever, are just whatever it might be. So that's 10 minutes arrival. Next time, no idea what I'm going to do, come and make some suggestions. There's a mastermind group down on Facebook. Let's get some suggestions as to what you want to hear about. My name is Steve Marvell. This was crucial survival podcast, and I'll speak to you on the next one.