The Long Burn

I love camping and I love camp fires. However, over the years of camping I have learned that the various types of campfires you make serve different purposes. I’ve made fires in rain, snow and with blue skies above with the same ingredients.

• The Fast Fire is the one you make with really dry wood to get really hot, really quick to make coals to cook on. This fire can flame out quickly without adequate fuel to keep it going. Dinner will taste good but it’ll take you some work to get another fire going.

• The Slow Starter is the one you try to get going but due to wet or green wood you just cannot get the right amount of heat to get the fire going. This fire is often super smokey and annoying to deal with. Often wood is not your best resource for this fire and pivoting to pine cones, or shredded bark is best.

• The Long Burn is the fire that you start small and patiently build with the right wood to heat and keep at a consistent temperature. This fire produces a excellent amount of heat for hours on end. This fire is my favorite and in my opinion the most useful.

The elements are never the same, but the resources you have and how you use them matter. What resources do you have available to you? What is the best way to use those resources?