Survival expert builds a fire

See the 10 sure-fire steps to building a fire in damp conditions in this photo summary of a demonstration by Air Force Survival School instructor Nick Weber. Point your arrow to the bottom edge of each photo to bring up the explanation, or read the complete text.

Section:Gallery

Mon., Dec. 29, 2014

After a seminar on building a fire in wet conditions, Adam Dewey of Sandpoint applies the techniques to stoke a blaze on Feb. 1, 2010, during a misty morning search and rescue team exercise at Priest Lake State Park. The instructor for this group of students was Nick Weber of the Survival School at Fairchild Air Force Base. The next photos follow Weber's progression for making a life-saving fire in what some people might consider hopeless conditions.

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Step 1. Select a site out of the wind, away from snow-loaded tree limbs, that suits your purpose. Step 2. Create a dry environment. In this case Weber tied up a small tarp. Step 3. Gather fuel of different sizes. Standing dead limbs and timber will be drier than wood off the ground.

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Step 4. Prepare the fuel using a knife or hatchet to split and expose dry wood. In this photo, Weber stabs a stick and pushes it against the back side of his knife blade to split it lengthwise. Make large piles of pencil-size kindling and sticks the size of a thumb, plus piles of larger fuels.

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Step 5. Make “feather sticks.” Weber demonstrates the Survival School’s tried and true technique. Choose a stick about 2-feet long with a sharp edge. Brace it against a log or rock. Keeping your arm and wrist stiff, use your shoulder to force the knife down to shave a 6-inch “feather” of wood from the sharp edge of the stick. Leave it attached and repeat five times. On the sixth stroke, shave the cluster of feathers off the stick. Repeat until you have about five feather sticks to use as the second stage in fire building to catch and build the flame from your tinder.

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Step 6. A stable platform should be laid to keep the fire off wet ground or from sinking into snow. This photo shows Adam Dewey of Sandpoint following Weber’s instructions by piling different sizes of kindling on the platform he’s made from five small logs.

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Step 7. A cross-piece of wood about 3 inches in diameter should be set across the platform to provide a wind break for the tinder as well as a lift that allows air flow under the kindling when it is stacked over the tinder flames. Step 8. Pile the tinder on the platform against the cross piece; have the feather sticks next to the tinder and all the other sizes of kindling and fuel within easy reach.

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Step 8. Pile the tinder on the platform…. In this photo, Weber demonstrates how to prepare a simple, cheap and effective home-made fire starter – a cotton ball coated with petroleum jelly. Remove the pre-coated cotton ball from a zipper-type plastic bag in the field, then pull the inside out and into numerous tufts, spreading the jelly lightly onto each one.

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Step 9. Ignite the tinder and quickly hold a feather stick over the flame. In this photo, Adam Dewey of Sandpoint uses a lighter to ignite the tinder he made by using his knife to scrape a pile of shavings from the dry inside of a stick he had split open.

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Step 9. Ignite the tinder…. In this photo Weber demonstrates how a 9-volt battery pressed into fluffed steel wool will ignite the tinder.

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Step 9. Ignite the tinder…. In this photo, Weber demonstrates how to scrape a magnesium stick with the back side of his knife to flash hot sparks onto cattail “down,” which can be used as tinder to start a fire. Cattail "down" and goats beard lichen can be used as tinder, but they must be dry.

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Step 9. Ignite the tinder and quickly hold a feather stick over the flame, blowing gently with your mouth as necessary until it’s burning, as Weber demonstrates in this photo with the steel wool tinder.

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Step10. Add fuels gradually, starting with more feather sticks, then pencil-size kindling and then thumb-size kindling in a cross-hatch pattern to allow good air flow. Build a good base of burning wood before adding larger fuels.

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Step 10. Add fuels gradually…. This photo is a good summary of the fire-building steps Nick Weber demonstrated to a group of search and rescue volunteers. He began by setting up a tarp to keep his fire site and firewood dry. Then he made a platform of logs to keep his fire off the wet ground and snow. Next he gathered several large piles of wood and cut some of it into small dimensions, including a pile of sticks the diameter of pencils and another pile the diameter of a thumb. He used a fluffed out a cotton ball coated in petroleum jelly as tinder and ignited it with a stroke of his knife on a magnesium sparking stick. This photo shows how he gradually adds larger sizes of wood to build the fire. Note the large gray stick he placed across the platform. This acted as a wind break for the tinder and creates flame-feeding air flow under the sticks as they are added to the fire.

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