What if i told you i had a foolproof guaranteed way to get your campfire going
first time every single time and that the most important thing wasn't firelighters it wasn't even
a little hatchet it is in fact one of these let me show you a guaranteed way to take the stress
and the hassle and the fuss out of getting your campfire going the very first thing that you've
got to do is figure out where you're going to put your campfire now i know that might sound basic
but it's not always as simple as you first would think yes you can just put it on the ground the
ground fire is something that everyone has used over the years but there's a couple of things
that aren't quite optimal about ground fires so the problem is ground fires are nowhere near as
efficient with the heat that they produce as you would get when you're using a portable fire pit
like this steel one that i've got here this one raises the fire up off the cold ground so you
don't lose all that heat down into the ground the other thing you'll find is when you're using a
fire pit like that you'll go through a lesser amount of wood for the given size of the fire
that means the fire is going to burn for longer on those colder nights and the other thing that's
great about these portable fire pits is from a sustainability point of view if you get to a
nice campsite that's full of beautiful lush green grass the last thing you should do is just start a
fire anywhere and all you're going to do is leave scorched marks all over the campground wherever
you've had that fire much better idea fire pit keeps it up off the ground at the end all you
got to do is empty the ashes into an existing fire pit even if it's not where you've actually camped
even it's the other side of the campsite and when you leave there will be no trace that you've
ever been there so what do you need well very quickly we definitely need some firewood to burn
i need some fire lighters i've got a lighter over there as well i've got my axe to chop the firewood
but i've also got a little sledgehammer and i'll show you in a second why i've got that so to start
this fire we need some kindling we need some nice little thin pieces of wood that we can put on the
fire first get them going and once they've ignited then we can put the bigger pieces of wood on top
of the fire and to get that kindling we're going to have to split these big pieces of firewood now
it is a bit of work splitting plywood but i want to show you how with a little hatchet and a little
sledge hammer you can take 80 of the effort out of splitting firewood for kindling so what i've got
over here is a nice flat piece of foil we're going to use this for a base to chop our firewood up
because if you try and split that firewood on the ground every single blow a huge amount of
the energy that comes from each blow is just going to be transferred down into the ground and
it's just wasted energy so instead we've got our piece that we're going to split it's going to go
on top of that support piece that we had here nice flat piece now little hatchet something that every
single camper should carry in the back of their car with them but instead of just standing up
and taking big full swings at the firewood in the hopes that we're going to split it we're going to
do it a lot more controlled a lot more safe i'm going to show you how to do it a lot smarter too
so what we'll do is is inspect the wood for any existing cracks that will help us in splitting
the wood up we'll also have a look at the way that the grain runs the way the lines run through the
wood so what we're going to do is we're going to go with the grain we'll split the timber with
the grain that way it will split a lot easier the trick is to wedge the axe into the wood a
little way and then use the sledge hammer on the back of the axe head to drive it down through
doing this lets you split firewood in a much more controlled and efficient way so that there that's
about the size of the kindling that you're looking for definitely no bigger than that so i reckon
we're going to need probably 10 or 15 of these pieces and then we'll be able to start this fire
cool so i'm happy with that amount of kindling i reckon that'll get it going nicely the other thing
that will definitely get it going nicely are fire lighters look yes you could sit there all
day with a couple of sticks rub them together and eventually you might be able to get a fire going
much better idea of fire lighters i really like these natural fire lighters for one they don't
give off a really toxic unnatural sort of fume when they're lighting the other thing is they
just work really well so just a bunch of these will work really well what we're going to do
is we're going to build them up at the bottom of the fire pit before we put the wood in so while i
do this i just want to take a moment and ask you what the craziest thing is that you've ever seen
or even used yourself to start a fire in place of actual fire lighters heard of all different
things corn chips i mean i personally rather eat them than use them to start a fire but whatever
vaseline cotton wool buds heaps of different things jump on down to those comments and let me
know now definitely don't be shy with those fire lighters yes they're worth their weight in gold
but they're also cheap so chuck a heap of them in there because you want to get this fire started
it's all about getting it started nice and quickly so back to that kindling now general rule thinnest
pieces first these will take quicker than the thicker pieces and when these are taken to start
adding those bigger pieces on now if you've got a campfire with a nice flat bottom what you want
to do is the pyramid trick you basically want to stack the firewood in a pyramid shape you can add
extra pieces all the way around it but what you're doing is you're making sure there's a heap of air
at the bottom in the middle of the fire because fires need oxygen so the more oxygen you can give
that fire the better it will take but with this fire pit we don't have a flat bottom it comes
down to a v at the bottom so keeping in mind that idea of an air gap i'm going to stack the kindling
that i've chopped across the top of the fire lighters with as much air underneath as possible
worst thing that you can do when you start to fire
is smother it if you can't get oxygen into it it's just not going to take
so the temptation right now is just to pile firewood on but you are guaranteed you're going
to smother your fire if you do that so what you need to do is definitely take a step back just
for a second give it a couple of minutes just make sure that all of that killing is starting to take
as it starts to take you can progressively start putting thicker and thicker pieces on
i've still got a fair few of these nice thin pieces i'm going to use up first
so now that kindling's really starting to take nicely you can go back to that idea of building
that pyramid that we talked about a moment ago even if we don't have a flat bottom on the bottom
of our fire like this one here you can still do it doesn't have to be precise just has to have some
sort of shape to it the idea is it's funnelling the heat up as it's going the flames are licking
up they're sucking oxygen from the bottom heat's rising it's all happening really nicely
so as you can see that is now going beautifully the worst thing you can do at the stage here
is smother your fire so medium-sized bits next
and once again we'll still go for that pyramid idea because we don't want to smother the fire
we don't want to put it out it's just as easy to put it out at this stage as it is at the
very beginning stage so medium pieces next and then once it's roaring then the big ones
now if you like those tips then i guarantee you are going to love our beginner's guide to
camping series in it we go through everything to make sure that your camping experiences are
absolutely unforgettable how to choose the right camping accommodation for you how to
cook and eat better on the road and even how to add serious amounts of luxury to your campsite
it's all right there and it's all ready to watch right now