My Navel

I recently decided that it would be good to have a lower dependence on mains electricity and all the benefits it brings. We suffer quite frequent power cuts in the rural area we live in, and it is only a matter of time before we run out of camping gas during one of these outages.

So, taking my destiny into my own hands, I bought a fire-steel on Wednesday, and ever since I have been itching to burn stuff; the office isn’t a great venue for this, but the weekend slowly came around and I set out to make fire.

I am lucky enough to live on the border of a forest, so after putting my son to bed on Friday, I trekked off into the woods looking for fallen silver birch. I have read the silver birch bark makes for good tinder and it wasn’t long before I found some. In between flailing wildly at horse flies, I selected my fallen branch and set off home with it.

On my outing I found some intact clay pigeons. These, I thought, would make good fire-starting vessels (and candle holders) being shallow dishes. I later discovered that they were made of some sort of brittle plastic rather than clay, which was slightly embarrassing.

I spent most of Saturday sawing my log into chunks and peeling off the bark. My son’s bedtime came and went and it soon came time to prove to the world that I could make fire. Like Prometheus, I gathered my fire steel and tinder with the sole objective of making things burn.

I took my newly-harvested birch bark shavings and my fire steel and loaded the clay. With trepidation I positioned the steel and struck, and I stuck, and I struck. I was beginning to lose heart when the damn-stuff caught; Prometheus I wasn’t, but by god, with a little bit of gentle nurturing, I had fire. I took the clay pigeon, complete with burning wood shavings to the chimnea that I bought the wife for her birthday and successfully lit a blazing fire. It was at this point I discovered that the, now slightly wilting, clay pigeon was actually made of plastic. What was the world coming to? Does trade descriptions know about this?

I sat back and enjoyed the blaze, but I couldn’t help wondering if I was missing something. It must have taken thirty strikes of the steel for the tinder to catch and my inner survivalist was feeling somewhat inadequate.

I remembered reading about char cloth and, wondering if this would make fire-lighting any easier, I ventured forth into the kitchen to find biscuit tins. Returning to the fire armed with a tin and a shirt that was now a bit too small (the onset of middle-aged spread taking its toll), I began to take the shirt apart with a sharp knife. I loaded the strips into the tin and punctured the lid before placing it onto the somewhat towering inferno that was building in the chimnea. Within ten seconds, the lid popped off and flames burst from the sides; not wanting my shirt of be reduced to ash, I took a length of birch log and prodded the lid back down. Jets of fire sprang from the puncture holes like some out-of-control Bunsen burner, and every time I withdrew my birch log, the lid popped off and flames erupted from the sides. Resolving myself to holding the lid on with my log, I waited for the volatiles to burn off and the jets of flame to die down. When they were all but a flicker that would be out-done by a candle flame, I wrestled the tin out of the fire and set it aside to cool.

Upon opening the tin, the previously white cotton had been reduced to a lightweight, gauzy, black cloth. You could imagine some goth-chick going wild over it. I took it out gently and marveled over its fragility and elegance nature.

Well, there was no time like the present to find out what this stuff was like for fire-lighting. I cut a two-inch square piece and loaded it into my now slightly misshapen clay pigeon. After putting some of my birch tinder next to it, I struck the steel in its general direction; not only did it start glowing immediately, it held the glow. I piled some tinder onto it and gave it a good blow, and before I knew it, there was fire. One strike of the steel was all it took; how much easier was this than striking into raw tinder? In seconds I had a small conflagration that was causing the clay pigeon even more problems in the shape-retention department.

Over the course of the evening (and one and a half bottles of red wine), I lit two more fires with the char-cloth. Never once did I need more than two strikes of the steel (I think the second strike was superfluous really, it was the wine and enthusiasm kicking in). Char-cloth really is the dogs-bees when it comes to fire-lighting. I was so impressed, that I cut the rest of the shirt up and made another two batches of char-cloth. I probably have enough to start a hundred fires now.

Tomorrow, I am planning to fire up the volcano stove with my son, to make lunch. Watch this space.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 28th, 2009 at 11:25 am and is filed under Uncategorized.