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May 7, 2018
 Making Fire Under Difficult Wet Conditions
By Benjamin Raven Pressley
Have you ever tried to make fire under wet conditions? What about a downpour? Maybe it rained all night and you wake up to wet wood, wet ground and it is cold and you need a fire. It can be done. I have made fire on a rainy day in a firepit with six inches of water in it before!
First of all understand a fire needs dry tinder, kindling and fuel as well as heat and oxygen to get started and to be maintained. Proper selection of materials to burn is important. When  choosing sticks to burn, choose sticks that snap, not bend. If they bend they are green. You can burn these once a fire is burning well, but initially you want dry, dead wood to burn. Wood that crumbles is rotten. It is usually not worth gathering. There are three essential sizes of combustible material needed to start a fire and maintain it. They are: 1) Tinder. This is any material that ignites easily, such as Cedar bark, grasses, nests, wood chips, paper, etc. 2) Kindling. These are small sticks, finger-sized and smaller. 3) Fuel. This is the larger logs that once burning form coals as they burn down.
Tinder should be dry, fine material that will ignite readily when lit or an ember and tinder are blown on. It is very important that tinder materials are carefully chosen and properly prepared, then it may be formed into a loose ball and small twigs built around it in the arrangement of the fire you have chosen. It is also wise to already have kindling (finger-sized and smaller) and fuel (larger logs) ready and waiting to add to the fire as it is able to burn these materials.
Have an ample supply of tinder, kindling and fuel on hand. Even after the fuel is burning you may have to speed up the burning down of coals or help new added fuel to begin burning by adding more kindling. The fire may even die down and burn out for one reason or another, so have extra tinder on hand. Having a good supply of fuel on hand assures that you have plenty of material handy to keep plenty of coals coming to finish cooking or whatever the task. Separate them into different piles and store them in a dry place, covered and out of the weather. Tinder is particularly affected by moisture.
 Like most survival skills planning ahead is always going to better your chances of success or failure. I have a separate fire making kit in addition to my survival kit. My fire making kit has a ferrous rod, butane lighter and a tightly compressed tinder bundle that can be fluffed up when needed. I usually make this tinder bundle from shredded tree bark like poplar or cedar and a cotton ball at the core. In my fire making kit I also have a sandwich bag full of petroleum jelly soaked cotton balls as well as some compressed paper wads. Compressed paper wads can be purchased at most camp stores. I also have candle stubs and even a couple of wax crayons; these work great to keep a struggling fire going. Pieces of the wax fire logs you can buy any store work great. I also carry two separate containers that are tightly sealed tiny bottles. One of them contains potassium permanganate and the other glycerin. A tiny pile of the potassium permanganate with a little indention in the middle and a few drops of glycerin will give you spontaneous combustion. Be sure to keep these two bottles separated! Potassium permanganate is also good for purifying drinking water; just a few crystals to a canteen will do.
Be an opportunist on the trail. If you see a mouse or bird nest or other dry tinder along the trail don’t assume there will be another opportunity down the trail, grab it up for later and seal it up in a ziplock bag. Take mental note of dry wood along the way. Notice thick evergreen trees that are dry underneath because of their thick boughs. You will find dry wood underneath these trees. Look for standing dead trees. You will have a better chance of getting dry wood from standing dead trees than if they have been laying on ground getting saturated. Look for loose airy bark from trees like the Eastern juniper (cedar) tree and River Birch.
 Tiny bundles of dry twigs or a fuzz stick will catch up easily. Sometimes you can carve the outer layer off of a branch and get to dry wood underneath. If you have some type of lantern or sterno fuel don’t douse your firewood with it, rather, put it in a small container like a soda can that has been torn in two and build your kindling around it.
The base ground you build your fire on is also very important. You need a dry base. Remember me mentioning a firepit filled with water? I built up several layers of dry wood above the pit of water so my fire wasn’t touching the water. If the ground is wet or snowed upon you will need to prepare a dry space to build the fire. What is above your fire is also important. Is it raining? You have to figure out a way to protect your fire from the rain like an overhanging rock or inside an emergency shelter you have built. Are there heavy snowy boughs overhead? These could douse your fire when the heat rises up and loosens the snow as it melts.
 Building a nice airy arrangement before lighting that first flame is also very important. Lay down a nice fluffy tinder bundle on that dry base and then build tiny dry twigs up in a teepee or log cabin arrangement. Wait for your kindling to get going good first before stacking fuel similarly on your fire. Let it build slowly. Make sure your larger fuel wood is split exposing the dry interior. Have plenty of material on hand to keep it going. Pine cones and fatwood work well. Don’t use dry leaves; they will smother a fire out with a layer of blackened ash in a hurry.
HERE IS A CLEVER FIRE MAKING KIT I MADE FROM A BAMBOO CONTAINER I MADE. THIS IS NOT MY NORMAL FIRE MAKING KIT BUT I THOUGHT YOU MIGHT LIKE IT:
 Plan ahead, watch the weather reports, choose your site and materials well and you can make a fire just about under any conditions. Always have a plan B though if you don’t get a fire going. Know how to stay dry and warm. Know the many ways your body loses heat. Plan ahead with proper rain gear and clothing. You can survive!
Some Tips By Dr A.F. Bourbeau
To increase the odds of making fire under wet conditions, try these important hints:
1. This one is by FAR the most important: in rain, there seems to be less oxygen to feed the fire, and most people will place the sticks further apart than usual so that more oxygen gets to the fire. This is wrong!! Instead, place the sticks at least as tight as usual, and FORCE oxygen to reach the fire by fanning with your hat, a coat whipped around in a circle, a piece of bark, or whatever. I cannot insist enough on this first point. To start a fire in the rain, ADD MORE WOOD AND FORCE THE AIR THROUGH, do NOT reduce the amount of wood placed on the fire.
2. Another trick: build the fire 3 feet above the ground, where there is more air, by starting it on a piece of bark placed on top of an old stump, for instance.
3. Cover the initial startup spot with some kind of roofing material. After the fire is started, the pieces of wood you place on top of the fire acts as roofing material for the fire underneath IF they are all placed in the same direction.
4. Do not expect to see flames until the fire is of the correct size. If you see flames, YOU ARE WASTING PRECIOUS HEAT, which you need to dry out the wood on top. Keep putting sticks on every flame that pokes through and keep forcing air to circulate.
5. Cut your finest tinder at the very end, after all other bigger stuff has been gathered, for easier starting because the stuff doesn't get damp.
6. Get to the inside of the wood somehow. It has got to be split so the fire catches on the inner wood.
7. Forget about using wood smaller in diameter than a finger. It will be soaked through if the rain has been hitting it for a while.
8. Look for wood which has not been rained on yet if possible (look under overhangs or under fallen timber.)
9. Start your fire on bark or on wood so that the first coals formed will fall onto something dry so they keep generating heat. Practice by putting wood in a lake overnight and starting your fires with that wood. Then practice in actual downpours. It's amazing how much the rain running down your raincoat sleeves put out that initial flame.
10. And remember, 99% of the time, the fire goes out because there is not enough fuel, not because there is not enough air. Put more wood on the fire, and then more, and still more, and then even more and keep it tightly scrunched together, side by side, not crisscrossed.
MAKING TINDER BUNDLES
Stripping that loose stringy bark off what we call a cedar tree here in the south but is actually a Juniper tree makes a great tinder bundle and is good for emergency cordage. Just rub it real good between your palms of your hands and get it real clean and fluffy. I have also added pine sap to a tiny bundle and rolled it up into little balls that will take a spark and fire right up. The pine sap burns very hot and is great for making fire under wet conditions.
Retted Poplar bark is also one of my favorites. This is the inner bark of the Yellow Tulip Poplar. You put the sheets of bark you have removed from the tree and put it in a running stream or barrel of water and you let it rot until the outer bark is off and nothing but the inner bark remains. This controlled rotting process is called 'retting'. If you do this in a barrel change the water frequently. Depending on time of year this process can take a couple of weeks. Take advantage of any fallen poplr tress you come across if they have fell in the water. Take the retted bark and hang up to dry. This retted bark makes great tinder bundles, cordage and small woven bags.
 
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