Fire: Stage 3. Kindling

A section in Chapter 1 of the book:
Prep Lists for Camping, Hiking, and Backpacking

The kindling stage adds or maintains heat from burning tinder to light your primary fuel—transitioning into a full campfire. Most kindling fuel will be small sticks or split wood—about the size of pencils.

Collect an armful of kindling BEFORE lighting your campfire. If high-quality kindling and fuel are available, less may be needed. If you think some time and effort will be required to get the fire going (like after a heavy rain), it is better to collect too much kindling than to not have enough on hand. Have enough kindling prepared to avoid needing to start over.

Identification

All kindling wood is:

• Dead: No green leaves or green bark on it
• Hard: Not mushy, soggy, or rotten
• Loud: Produces a sharp crack sound when broken
• Light: Weighs less than wet or rotten wood of similar size

Sources

Consider these kindling sources.

• Bark: from birch, cherry, or other smooth-barked trees
• Branches: ¼” to ½” thick, up to one foot long
• Pine Cones: large, dry, brown, open (these will be smoky)
• Split: split from blocks of wood into the size of pencils

This list of ideas is just to get you started. Learn more by searching the Internet for articles and demonstrations using search terms from these lists.

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