Campfire
A campfire is a fire at a campsite that provides light, warmth, and heat for cooking. It can also serve as a beacon and an insect and predator deterrent. Established campgrounds often provide a stone or steel fire ring for safety. Campfires are a popular feature of camping. At summer camps, the word campfire often refers to an event at which there is a fire. Some camps refer to the fire itself as a campfire.
History
First campfire
An analysis of burned antelope bones from caves in Swartkrans, South Africa, confirms that Australopithecus robustus and/or Homo erectus built campfires roughly 1.6 million years ago. Evidence within Wonderwerk Cave, at the edge of the Kalahari Desert, has been called the oldest known controlled fire. Microscopic analysis of plant ash and charred bone fragments suggests that materials in the cave were not heated above about. This is consistent with preliminary findings that the fires burned grasses, brush, and leaves. Such fuel would produce weak flames. The data suggests humans were cooking prey by campfire as far back as the first appearance of Homo erectus 1.9 million years ago.Safety
Finding a site
Ideally, campfires should be made in a fire ring. If a fire ring is not available, a temporary fire site may be constructed. Bare rock or unvegetated ground is ideal for a fire site. Alternatively, turf may be cut away to form a bare area and carefully replaced after the fire has cooled to minimize damage. Another way is to cover the ground with sand, or other soil mostly free of flammable organic material, to a depth of a few inches. A ring of rocks is sometimes constructed around a fire. Fire rings, however, do not fully protect material on the ground from catching fire. Flying embers are still a threat, and the fire ring may become hot enough to ignite material in contact with it, or the heat the water to a vapor thereby cracking the rocks.Safety measures
Campfires can spark wildfires. As such, it is important for the fire builder to take multiple safety precautions, including:- Avoiding building campfires under hanging branches or over steep slopes, and clear a ten-foot diameter circle around the fire of all flammable debris.
- Having enough water nearby and a shovel to smother an out-of-control fire with dirt.
- Minimizing the size of the fire to prevent problems from occurring.
- Never leaving a campfire unattended.
- When extinguishing a campfire, using plenty of water or dirt, then stirring the mixture and add more water, then check that there are no burning embers left whatsoever.
- Never bury hot coals, as they can continue to burn and cause root fires or wildfires. Be aware of roots if digging a hole for your fire.
- Making sure the fire pit is large enough for the campfire and there are no combustibles near the campfire, and avoiding the construction of the campfire on a windy day.
Types of fuel
- Tinder lights easily and is used to start an enduring campfire. It is anything that can be lit with a spark and is usually classified as being thinner than a human's pinky finger. The tinder of choice before matches and lighters was amadou next to flint and steel. A few decent natural tinders are cotton, birch bark, cedar bark, and fatwood, where available; followed by dead, dry pine needles or grass; a more comprehensive list is given in the article on tinder. Although not natural, steel wool makes excellent tinder and can be started with steel and flint, or a 9 volt battery without difficulty.
- Kindling wood is an arbitrary classification including anything bigger than tinder but smaller than fuel wood. In fact, there are gradations of kindling, from sticks thinner than a finger to those as thick as a wrist. A quantity of kindling sufficient to fill a hat may be enough, but more is better. A faggot is a related term indicating a bundle of small branches used to feed a small fire or continue developing a bigger fire out of a small one.
- Fuel wood can be different types of timber. Timber ranges from small logs two or three inches across to larger logs that can burn for hours. It is typically difficult to gather without a hatchet or other cutting tool. In heavily used campsites, fuel wood can be hard to find, so it may have to purchased at a nearby store or be brought from home. However, untreated wood should not be transported due to the probability that invasive species of bugs will be transported with it. Heat-treated wood such as kiln-dried lumber is safe to transport. In the United States, areas that allow camping, like state parks and national parks, often let campers collect firewood lying on the ground. Some parks do not do this for various reasons, e.g. if they have erosion problems from campgrounds near dunes. Parks almost always forbid cutting living trees, and may also prohibit collecting dead parts of standing trees.
Construction styles
There are a variety of designs to choose from in building a campfire. A functional design is important in the early stages of a fire. Most of them make no mention of fuelwood—in most designs, fuelwood is never placed on a fire until the kindling is burning strongly.Teepee
The tipi fire-build takes some patience to construct. First, the tinder is piled up in a compact heap. The smaller kindling is arranged around it, like the poles of a tipi. For added strength, it may be possible to lash some of the sticks together. A tripod lashing is quite difficult to execute with small sticks, so a clove hitch should suffice. Then the larger kindling is arranged above the smaller kindling, taking care not to collapse the tipi. A separate tipi as a shell around the first one may work better. Tipi fires are excellent for producing heat to keep people warm. The gases from the bottom quickly come to the top as you add more sticks.One downside to a Tipi fire is that when it burns, the logs become unstable and can fall over. This is especially concerning with a large fire.
Log cabin
A log cabin fire-build likewise begins with a tinder pile. The kindling is then stacked around it, as in the construction of a log cabin. The first two kindling sticks are laid parallel to each other, on opposite sides of the tinder pile. The second pair is laid on top of the first, at right angles to it, and also on opposite sides of the tinder. More kindling is added in the same manner. The smallest kindling is placed over the top of the assembly. Of all the fire-builds, the log cabin is the least vulnerable to premature collapse, but it is also inefficient because it makes the worst use of convection to ignite progressively larger pieces of fuel. However, these qualities make the log cabin an ideal cooking fire as it burns for a long period of time and can support cookware.A variation on the log cabin starts with two pieces of fuelwood with a pile of tinder between them, and small kindling laid over the tops of the logs, above the tinder. The tinder is lit, and the kindling is allowed to catch fire. When it is burning briskly, it is broken and pushed down into the consumed tinder, and the larger kindling is placed over the top of the logs. When that is burning well, it is also pushed down. Eventually, a pile of kindling burns between two pieces of fuelwood, and soon the logs catch fire from it.
Another variation is called the funeral pyre method because it is used for building funeral pyres. Its main difference from the standard log cabin is that it starts with thin pieces and moves up to thick pieces. If built on a large scale, this type of fire-build collapses in a controlled manner without restricting the airflow.
Hybrid
A hybrid fire combines the elements of both the tipi and the log cabin creating an easily lit yet stable fire structure. The hybrid is made by first erecting a small tipi and then proceeding to construct a log cabin around it. This fire structure combines benefits of both fire types: the tipi allows the fire to ignite easily and the log cabin sustains the fire for a long time.Cross-fire
A cross-fire is built by positioning two pieces of wood with the tinder in between. Once the fire is burning well, additional pieces of wood are placed on top in layers that alternate directions. This type of fire creates coals suitable for cooking.Lean-to
A lean-to fire-build starts with the same pile of tinder as the tipi fire-build. Then, a long, thick piece of kindling is driven into the ground at an angle, so that it overhangs the tinder pile. The smaller pieces of kindling are leaned against the big stick so that the tinder is enclosed between them.In an alternative method, a large piece of fuelwood or log can be placed on the ground next to the tinder pile. Then kindling is placed with one end propped up by the larger piece of fuelwood, and the other resting on the ground so that the kindling is leaning over the tinder pile. This method is useful in very high winds, as the piece of fuel wood acts as a windbreak.
Rakovalkea
The traditional Finnish rakovalkea, or nying in Scandinavian languages, also called by English terms long log fire or gap fire, is constructed by placing one long and thick piece of fuelwood atop another, parallel, and bolstering them in place with four sturdy posts driven into the ground. Traditionally, whole un-split tree trunks provide the fuelwood. Kindling and tinder are placed between the logs in sufficient quantity to raise the upper log and allow ventilation. The tinder is always lit at the center so the bolstering posts near the ends do not burn prematurely.The rakovalkea has two significant features. First, it burns slowly but steadily when lit; it does not require arduous maintenance, but burns for a very long time. A well constructed rakovalkea of two thick logs of two meters in length can warm two lean-to shelters for a whole sleeping shift. The construction causes the logs themselves to protect the fire from the wind. Thus, exposure to smoke is unlikely for the sleepers; nevertheless someone should always watch in case of an emergency. Second, it can be easily scaled to larger sizes limited only by the length of available tree trunks. The arrangement is also useful as beacon fire, i.e. a temporary light signal for ships far in the sea.