An axe is the most important tool in the bush, more so than the gun, bow and arrow, next in line is a good machete or those new all purpose shovels.
The hunting knife comes next, but well sharpened and a good one.
(Sniper Note: In my opinion you can't beat a good Kabar USMC or Air Force Survival knife. Their blades have a high tensile strength, are less brittle than stainless steel, and sharpen quickly with less than ideal abrasive surfaces. A sharpening stone to go with the knife is very important, You can sharpen with other things but unless your blade is extremely dull, you'll only make it worse.)
THE FIREPLACE: It needs to be prepared carefully. Choose a site that is sheltered, especially during high winds. Do not light a fire at the base of a tree or a stump. Clear away leaves, twigs, moss and dry grass from a circle at least 2m (6 feet) across & scrape everything away until you have a surface of bare earth. If the ground is wet or covered with snow, the fire MUST be built on a platform.
Make this from a layer of green logs covered with a layer of earth or a layer of stones. If land is swampy or the snow deep a raised platform is needed, known as a temple fire.
TEMPLE FIRE:
This hearth consists of a raised platform, built of green timber. Four uprights support cross- pieces in their forks. Across them place a layer of green logs and cover this with several inches of earth. Light the fire on top of this. A pole across upper forks on diagonally opposite uprights can support cooking pots.
IN WINDY CONDITIONS:
If there are particularly strong winds, dig a trench and light your fire in it.
Also good for windy conditions: encircle your fire with rocks to retain heat and conserve fuel. Use them to support cooking utensils. Their heat, as well as that from the fire will keep things warm and you can use the rocks themselves as bed warmer.
Slate and shale have air pockets that when heated, turn into grenades.
LIGHTING FIRE FROM A COAL:
To light a fire from a coal, collect a bundle of dry tinder, softly tease a large piece and place the coal in the centre, fold the rest of the tinder over the coal and with the tinder ball held very loosely between the widespread fingers. Now whirl the ball round and round at arms' length or if there is a strong wind blowing, hold the ball in the air, allowing the wind to blow between the fingers. The ball will start to smoke as the tinder catches. When there is a dense flow of smoke, blow into the ball, loosening it in your hand. These few last puffs will convert the smouldering mass to flame thus fire from coal at last.
Another trick is to attach a pierced can to a 4 foot rope, put the coal & tinder in it, & let it swirl till it smokes & flames.
Select fire area, out of the wind, protected from rain & snow. Secure fuel, build fire before darkness. Gather adequate supply of fuel first, so that fire can be fed immediately as it grows. Tinder is highly combustible substance in which a spark can be blown into flame & innumerable materials of this sort can be found, and carried in special containers such as tinderboxes etc.
Tinder impregnated with a solution of saltpetre and later dried MUST be carried in an airtight container. If carried otherwise the saltpetre will become damp with moisture from the air.
(Sniper Note: A very good fire starter is a ball of dryer lint soaked with candle wax. )
Fuzz Sticks:
Many bushmen start all fires, indoors and out, with them. Although in terms of initial effort they are often more bother than a handful of dry twigs, they are fairly dependable. One is easily made by shaving a straight-grained stick of dry split softwood with single knife strokes until one end is a mass of wooden curls.
(Sniper Note: Make a "pine cone" looking thing with a knife and piece of wood, the smaller the slivers the easier they will be to light.)
The usual procedure is to bunch no less than 3 such fuzz-sticks so that the flames will be able to eat into the shavings, toss on any stray whittling, light the mass and then go through the usual procedure of adding progressively larger firewood.
SLOW MATCH:
You will discover that some of the soft inner barks teased & spun into cord will smoulder slowly when lighted. It's called: Slow Match. It's worth while to discover which plants whose barks have this property.
Lengths of cord made from such a bark can be used to maintain a "coal" for a length of time and so save your precious matches.
A slow match is a length of rope or cord that hangs smouldering to give fire when wanted. It is used as a means of preserving fire and also as a mean of carrying it from place to place.
It can be made by making a length of cord or thin rope from 1/4" 1/2" in diameter, from suitable barks or palm fibres.
Most of the silky soft fibred barks are ideal. When one end is put in fire or against a glowing coal it will take hold of the spark, smouldering slowly.
A slow match is a safe way when having no match or fire-lighting material to preserve the vital spark for further use after you have doused your fire and left camp for an hour or 2. For such a use, the slow match should be hung from a branch and exposed to air cuurents.
Birch bark can be detached in the thinnest of layers and these shredded to make tinder. Bark of some cedars is also good.
Piece of your shirt or pants, dry moss, lichens, dead evergreen needles, dry hay are among the can be pulverized for tinder, even bird nests.
Dry fuzz from pussy willows is a well-known tinder, so is a dry wood that has dry rotted and can be rubbed to a powder.
A handful of very dry pine needles often works, you can also use the fluff of the so-called cotton grass, that of the cattails and the downy heads of such flower as mature Goldenrod.
Tinder is any kind of material that takes the minimum of heat to make it catch in fire. Good tinder needs only a spark to ignite it.
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