The campfire is the first thing you should start with when you have found the spot to start building your camp. Usually time is short until nightfall if it is not already dark by the time you found your spot to make camp. A campfire will provide you with light, heat and the ability to prepare food as well as ward of wild animals and bugs.

The best spot for a campfire is in the same spot as an old one, you will then have all the building material you will need and the place has already been tested earlier. Still if it’s the first time you are using it check the basics to be sure its done properly.

Always respect fire, fire is both beautiful, useful and lifesaving. But uncontrolled fire is just as dangerous and deadly. Do not play with fire and always to keep an eye on it. Always put it out properly and make sure its dead before leaving the campsite, a still smothering campfire is able to flare up again and in worst case scenario cause a forest fire.

Picking a good spot

• Make sure the campfire is built on flat ground with no roots or dry earth below it. Make sure there is no vegetation growing within 1 meter from the campfire and no low hanging branches above it. Otherwise your campfire might spread into the ground and/or the surrounding vegetation.
• The best ground to build a campfire on is on sand, gravel or mineral soil. Large rocks, boulders, cliffs etc are poor choice as they might crack and break from the heat. Dry earth and grass are bad choices as they might catch fire.
• Make sure that there is a good way for the smoke to rise and space enough for air to reach the flames.

Campfire: Building a fire ring.

A fire ring is a basic campfire setup which is often easy to make, safe to use and easy to restore. It do not require any tools to create, just some dry hand sized rocks. Make sure the rocks are not gathered from a body of water as they risk being wet inside and could explode when heated. As with most campfires a fire ring is best built on gravel, sand or mineral soil.

• If there is no prepared campfire start by gathering some flat rocks to serve as the base for the campfire. Make sure they are arranged in such a way that they fit roughly together and create a large enough base that the firewood can rest easily on them. The gaps between the rocks will help air to reach the burning fire, both simplifying lighting the fire as well as keeping it going and burning at a steady pace. The rocks themselves will also both absorb and reflect heat, helping to project it upwards and more evenly distribute the heat.
• Arrange larger rocks in a circle around the flat rocks, creating a fire ring. The fire ring help contain the fire, protects the ground beneath it as well as serve as support for both campfire and cooking utilities as well as and heat resources in cold weather.
• If its an old campfire, clean it out from old ash and other leftovers. This really should have been done by the last people leaving the campfire but many cheat on this part. Cleaning out the campfire help to improve the airflow, heat retention as well as show any weaknesses or damages to the construction of the campfire. Make sure to correct or repair any weaknesses you spot.
• Depending on the nature of what you are going to cook over the campfire you might want to create a cavity in the fire ring where you can place a frying pan, saucepan or simply some skewers.
  Do this by creating a semi circle out from the fire ring where you can easily move chunks of ember from the campfire with a stick. Think of it like the cooktop on your stove at home, make sure the size is just large enough to hold your cooking utility without putting it straight on top the ember.
  This can also be used as a makeshift oven by placing whatever you wish to bake wrapped up on the ember and then putting some large stones on top as lid.

Gathering firewood

All types of wood burn if they are warm enough, but some are better than others and there is trouble getting the fire going if its fresh or wet as well as a lot of smoke. When looking for firewood start by deciding what kind of fire you want to build. Size of the fire could also be affected by the season and weather, how long it needs to burn depends on for how long you will stay or what you need to use the fire for.

A campfire to cook some sausages for the kids on a snack stop during summer don’t require more than a small fire and just enough firewood to have a fire for 5-10 minutes. A campfire to cook dinner for two families on and keep warm around until its time to sleep during a late autumn sleep out require a large fire and a lot of firewood to keep it going for hours.

Firewood should always be gathered from what is on the ground. Beyond the fact that damaging living trees is usually illegal and might cause the tree to die, living trees contains a lot of water and require a lot of heat to burn and stay burning. Its not worth it to burn fresh wood from living trees.
Dead but still standing trees are homes for birds, insects and other animals and bugs. So just as with living trees never break of branches from standing dead trees.

Instead look for fallen sticks and branches underneath the trees. Spruces are especially good to look underneath as they cover the ground from both wind, rain and snow. If no Spruces grow where you are camping look for other trees with thick branches and foliage such as oaks and elms. Around their trunks will the ground usually be dry as well.
Birch trees are also good to look around, they burn easily and have many uses. Always cut of the bark of the firewood which are naturally highly flame able because of their high oil concentration before putting birch into a fire. The bark can then by hand or with a knife be separate into thin layers that when dried are excellent to use as tinder that will start to burn even with just a few sparks. Remember to harvest as much bark as possible before you put it into the fire.

• Tinder is the first thing to look for, this can be small twigs, dry leaves, pine needles or dry grass. They can be found anywhere in nature, often just a few steps from your campfire spot. You can also make your own tinder by making some sawdust from larger dry firewood, drying thin pieces of birch bark or amadou made from bracket fungi.

• Kindling is the second thing to look for, this can be small sticks or by batting larger pieces of firewood into the needed thickness. They should range in thickness from 1-3 cm (little finger to a thumbprint in size.)

• Firewood is the third thing to look for, these will be the main fuel for your fire and can be from 5-15 cm thick. (You should be able to grab across it with one hand and hold it firmly.)

Making a tinder nest

Before jumping at building the campfire take a minute to make a tinder nest. A tinder nest is a gathering of whatever tinder you had at hand gathered in for example a larger pieces of birch bark.

To make a nest take a piece of birch bark, roughly the size of your palm. Place it as a bowl and fill it with the smallest tinder pieces such as dry pine needles, dry grass or sawdust. Make sure you don’t pack the tinder but instead just drop it there and lightly push it down if it risk blowing away or falling out.

Making a feather stick

Take a stick of kindle and carefully carve a long but shallow cut into the stick with a knife without breaking of at the bottom. Continue up and around the stick carving more cuts until the stick is completely carved up. The sawdust attached at the end of the stick should look like feathers now.

Building the campfire.

There is several ways to build a campfire and its good to know a few of them as they each provide different kinds of fire, light and cooking capabilities.

• Cabin is one of the most common way to build a campfire. It’s simple, can be performed with variations of sizes of firewood and is easily used as a cooking fire.
  • Put two large firewood pieces at the bottom of the fire ring. The space between them should be small enough that your fire nest don’t fall through. This ensures that the temperature do not suddenly drop as you light your fire, drawing out the cold and moist air from the ground directly into your tiny sparks.
  • Place a tinder nest in the middle of the two firewood pieces that serve as the base.
  • Put a few feather sticks carefully on the nest with the cuts facing the middle.
  • Light the tinder nest and give it some time, making sure the feather sticks catch fire.
  • Feed the fire with more small twigs and tinder until it is burning steadily.
  • Build a two to three layers of thinner firewood around the nest.
  • Put a few more small kindle pieces in the fire and keep feeding it with more pieces until the fire is starting to spread into the top layer of firewood.
  • Keep an eye on the fire and if required blow very carefully at the base of the fire to provide more oxygen to the fire. This will make the flames generate more heat and in turn cause the fire to burn more intensely.
  • As the top layers start to burn through and fall into the fire below, put two larger pieces of firewood on top of the fire to finish the cabin.
  • When required, feed the fire one or two pieces of firewood alternating as before to continue to have the two layer cabin structure.