Carrying Dry Kindling... | Pioneer Bushcraft

By Sean Fagan

Carrying dry kindling can greatly increase your fire-lighting success. In photo, dead stalks of Hogweed, Herculeum sphondylium (Photo: Sean Fagan).

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The Value of Carrying Dry Kindling in the Woods...

Fire skills mastery is very much about attention to details and sound technique - it's also about thinking ahead - in this example - gathering dry tinder and kindling when it's available and dry (before the weather turns sour, making fire-lighting conditions difficult).

The bottom line is, that when an individual travels from one camp site to another - there is no guarantee that the new camp site will have anything worthwhile in the way of dry kindling - also, the weather could change for the worst, meaning that when a person arrives at their new camp site the local tinders and kindling might be damp, scarce and hard-to-ignite in poor weather.

It's prudent to collect natural tinders and kindling en route.

The probability of coming across a greater range of natural kindling en route is also high, and if the weather is fair, that is the ideal time to collect kindling.

I'm confident (if you haven't tried already) that carrying dry tinder and dry kindling will greatly improve your fire-lighting success when outdoors - no matter what the weather.

Let me stress a point - I'm not advocating carrying dry kindling from home to the woods. What I'm encouraging is collecting dry kindling when you are out in nature (while you are camping, for example).

I also recommend that you collect dry tinder when out in nature and use as required.

By all means carry more flammable, man-made fire-starters with you but generally save these for emergencies and focus on expanding your knowledge of local, natural tinders and natural kindling.

The Value of Flexibility

For the record, I'm not encouraging a dogmatic approach to fire-lighting skills.

I'm certainly not advocating that the only fire-lighting technique you should learn for the outdoors should stem exclusively from carrying dry, natural tinder and kindling.

What I'm advocating is a flexible, observant, multi-skilled approach to outdoor fire-lighting (i.e building a strong repertoire of viable, fire-lighting skills using what only what nature provides).

That means placing equal emphasis on other natural, fire-lighting techniques such as feather sticks and wood friction fire skills such as the bow drill.

Also, using man-made materials (such as thin, flammable strips of rubber & Vaseline saturated cotton balls) can also be important for outdoor fire-lighting, but the real emphasis should be placed on fire-lighting techniques from nature - as it takes time and a lot of practise to master fire made exclusively from natural materials.

Finishing Thoughts...

The whole idea of expanding fire-skills is to enable the individual to go to a wild place, with minimal equipment, and possess within that person's mind and muscles - a range of fire-lighting options that can be successfully applied in wild areas - places that will undoubtedly challenge and stretch your fire-skills.

Confidence, real confidence - comes from competence.

In the wild, results are what counts.

Confidence can't be foisted, cajoled or bargained with in wild places.

There is a certain black and white finality to living close to nature with minimal equipment.

This is especially true of fire-lighting.

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