Writing Rural With Alley

Story Smithing: Fire Starting 101

• Alley

Share episode

Want to learn what your character needs for making a fire? Would you like to learn some new words that could potentially whittle down your word count in editing? Do you know what a flue is, and why it is important to all fireplaces and woodstoves? What’s a chimney swift? Find out on this episode! 

Send us a text

If you enjoy this podcast and would like to help support the creation of this work or would like access to unique membership perks, you can do this and more at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/writingruralwithalley.

Want to learn what your character needs for making a fire? Would you like to learn some new words that could potentially whittle down your word count in editing? Do you know what a flue is and why it's important to all fireplaces and wood stoves? What is a Chimley Swift? Find out on this episode. Welcome to Writing Rural with Alley, the Fiction Writers Weekly Inspirations Station for Rural, Life, and Lifestyles, from historical to post-apocalyptic, helping you bring your rural stories to life. I'm Alley, and this is episode number 69, Fire Starting 101. Stick around to the end to find find out all the ways things could possibly go wrong. Now, let's get into this. Fire has been at the core of everyday life since caveman times. Modern technology has rendered it not as needed in many ways, but most people in rural places still use it as an alternative heating and cooking method. After an Apocalypse, fire will likely take a much bigger role in everyday life. Some of the things that fire is used for is heating, cooking, tanning hides, preserving meat, baking, lighting, smelting, forging, incinerating waste and trash, cremation, clearing off land for agricultural purposes, signaling for help, making herbal medicines, making weapons, destruction, capital punishment, making drinks, making waterproofing coating, campfires, roasting marshmallows, and so much more. Fire has a huge place in everyday human life, and our stories should reflect this. Part of that is knowing what each thing is called so we don't have to use 89 words to describe something that can be described in less than three. Okay, results may vary in how many you can whittle off depending on what you are rephrasing or rewriting. I do that too much sometimes. Let's start off with some basics for starting a fire from scratch. A bird's nest. No, no, no. Not the kind for feathery critters. Although it will look similar. In this case, a bird's nest is roughly a softball-sized group of bone-dry grass, toothpick or smaller-sized twigs, pine needles, dead leaves, and things of this nature. This will be the thing an ember is placed into because it is easy to catch on fire, and because of its size, it will make fire starting fairly easy. Which brings us to our next term, embers. Embers are glowing hot or smoldering items placed within the bird's nest to produce the heat to light the nest on fire. They can be hot pieces of corkwood, chard cloth, leaves, or modern-day cotton balls, and more. Embers are made one of three ways. The first is with friction. These would be things like a bow drill, fire plow, hand drill, pump drill, fire piston, and more. Another way is with a spark. This will include ferro-rods, flint and steel, and more modern ones like batteries. The last way is heat magnification or a focused fire. These methods include using something to reflect the sun's rays in such a way that they focus into a single spot, and that makes enough heat to make an ember. This includes magnifying glass, pop cans, and chocolate, and clear bags filled with water. Yes, you heard that right. Now, once the ember is placed into the bird's nest, the nest is wrapped slightly around it, and the person will blow on the ember in the bird's nest to start the fire. This gets the ember hot enough. It lights the material around it on fire and you have flames. Now, keep in mind that this is a bit of a learned skill. It's not hard, but it will be learned with a little trial and error. Blowing too hard will blow out the flames as soon as they're made. We're not trying to take out the big bag wolf or the piggies. Blowing too softly will also do not help. Blowing too softly is anything that would not make a candle flame move at 4-6 inches away from the mouth. And blowing will happen somewhere around the same level as blowing out a candle. Okay, not the violent blowing out that you see a 10-year-old do, but when your grandma wants to blow out the candles one at a time to make sure you can count that high. One more thing for this. There is a term tender for starting a fire in the place of a bird's nest. This is normally done when there is a flame to light the tender. This could be a match, a lighter, or something like that. Tender is little twigs or hard dry grass similar to straw that is about the size of lead in a number two pencil. They are normally about the length from between your pinkie to your thumb when you spread your fingers out. A bundle that fits nicely in a circle that's made by your hands is how much they need. After this comes kindling. This is a lot of smaller stuff to help your fire get bigger. When I was a Girl Scout, we were taught that kindling was the size of your thumb and as long as your middle finger to your elbow. You wanted an armful. However, practically, and what we always did, we gathered a bunch of smaller sticks and twigs and broke them into the sizes that we wanted. We also raked up the bark that came off when we chopped the wood and saved that for kindling in the winter. Now, fires are built by adding the next size up onto the fire until you get to logs on the fire. So next is what the scouts called fuel. It's what we always call the bigger sticks. These were around the size of your wrist. At this point, you want to decide on the length of the six because this will determine how long or wide the fire is. Most are around 18 inches or 45. 72 centimeters. No one literally measures this, so that's a general estimate. Keep in mind that if your character is using a fireplace or wood stove, they will only have so many inches that will fit in before they have to break it into smaller pieces. Next on the size is logs. These are normally cut into halves, thirds, or quarters, depending on how large the tree was. Trees that are very large will be chopped into more pieces. After these are on the fire, as long as your character keeps adding more logs before they have only a few coals from the other logs left, they will not have to restart the fire. On the same note, they might have to restart the fire from only a few coals in the mornings or if they've been gone for long periods of time. This is done by adding kindling to the coals and working their way back up to logs. A good way to avoid this is to add overnighters to the fire. These are larger logs that have not been chopped. Stumps, logs with many knots, and hardwood are the most common. These tend to burn slower and extend the fire a little bit longer. So hopefully there are plenty of embers left in the morning. Another important term is airflow. Fire needs air. Without air, fire goes out. So making sure that the fire gets enough as important. With a fireplace, wood stove, or anything that uses a chimley, this is done with a flue. A flue is a round disk that turns inside the chimley. If it is turned into a horizontal flat position, this is called a closed flue. That means it is blocking the chimley and there is no airflow. The house will likely start backing up with smoke. If the flue is in a vertical upright position, then it is called an open flue or a fully open flue. This will let the fire burn quickly. Most people keep the flue somewhere in the middle of these two. However, they will likely have the flue at the fully open position while starting a fire. When they're sleeping for the night and trying to have the fire burn slower, they will keep it in a mostly closed position. This position also retains more heat. Now, if your character is outside and it's windy, they might build a windbreak. This historically has been done by building a wooden wall with tall stakes in the ground that long sticks are stacked between to block the wind. If this is a place they use often and don't plan to move away from, they could choose to make a dirt mound instead or even use bricks or other mason. Other outside terms include a fire pit. This is literally a pit that they dug to place the fire in. A fire ring is where they use rocks to build a ring around the fire. Clearing the area means to remove any sticks, dead or dry plants, and all the dead leaves out of the area of the fire, at least three feet on all sides of the fire. This is because if any embers pop out of the fire, there is nothing for them to catch on fire and risk a forest fire. A fire starter in modern times means something that is easy to light on fire and will stay on fire long enough to catch the kindling on fire. This can be bought in many stores. It can also be made at home with cotton balls, lint, wood, cardboard, sawdust, and more. Extending the fire starter means that they add something to make the fire on the starters last longer. This can be a wax and kerosine mix, petroleum jelly, pine sap, sawdust and wax, or If you want it to smell good, pie needles and wax. There are many more, but this gives you a starting point. These can be bought at the store or made at home. Last, but definitely not least, is wet and dry wood. The water content inside the wood will determine how hard or easy it is to light on fire. Wet wood, meaning the amount of water inside the wood, is at best difficult to start and stay burning, and at worst, impossible. Freshly cut wood is most often what is referred to as wet wood. Dry wood, on the other hand, has had time to, did you guess it? Time to dry out. This normally means the minimum of one year since it was first cut down.

Fun fact:

according to the Smithsonian in America, chimney fires due to birds' nests can be traced all the way back to Plymouth Rock. This is due to a bird called the chimney swift, a small bird that got its name from roosting inside chimneys. And now for everyone's favorite part, what could possibly go wrong? Before we get into the best part, if you enjoy this podcast, I hope you will take a minute to follow, rate, and review on your favorite podcasting platform. And if you're listening on YouTube, subscribe and hit the like button. Drop me a comment. I love to hear from you and answer questions. Don't forget to share with a friend. As always, you can find this episode's show notes and helpful links to learn more on my website, alleyhart. Com. And now for everyone's favorite

part. Likely to go wrong:

your character didn't put enough logs on the fire, and in the night, the fire dies out.

Also likely to go wrong:

your character is moving an ember from a bow drill to a bird's nest. In the time it takes to move it, the ember goes out. your character is new to fire-making. They add too many things and do not leave enough airflow. They accidentally put the fire out.

Possible to go wrong:

your character rubs petroleum jelly on a cotton ball to make the time that it is on fire extend. However, they do not get the jelly off their fingers and risk catching themselves on fire when they strike the match.

Also possible to go wrong:

your character starts their year's first fire in the fireplace. However, they don't know that a bird has built its nest in the chimney. The heat of the fire catches the nest on fire, resulting in a house fire. your character is making fire from scratch. When their young child hears that they are going to use the bird's nest, they are very angry thinking it's a real bird's nest. They refuse to listen to the explanations of what it actually is and thinks the person is a baby bird killer.

Unlikely to go wrong:

your character's flue breaks and gets stuck in the open position. This causes to burn through wood very quickly.

Also unlikely to go wrong:

your character is splitting logs in half. They swing at one and miss. The ax swings down and into their leg. your character did not know to clear the area around a campfire to remove anything that is easy to catch on fire. When the fire is going well, it catches some dead leaves on fire, and this leads to a forest fire. Improbable, but still technically in

the realm of possibilities:

your character's flue breaks and is stuck in the closed position. With nowhere for the smoke to go, it fills the house. Improbable, but still technically in your character gathers kindling such as twigs, bark, and dead leaves to store them in a large bucket to use during the winter to start fires in the wood stove. However, they didn't know that some of the leaves were damp. When they go to use them in the winter, they find everything in the bottom of the bucket has molded. Thanks for listening. Until next time. Happy wordsmithing.