The simple way to teach your children how to light a fire.

Part 4 Building and maintaining a small fire

Hi, hope you are all feeling ok. This is the final part of my fire lighting blogs. I hope you have found them useful.

My intention is to be helpful to parents/carers or educators out there who want to support children to learn how to fire light and need some tips.

I have made videos to accompany the blogs on each of the following:

Part 1 - getting a spark with a flint and steel

Part 2 - Using the spark to light cotton wool

Part 3 - Adding Silver Birch bark as a fire extender

As well as this I have made videos on:

1. Setting up a fire area
2. What you will need to start a fire 

I am going to make this easy and quick to read so I have answered some common questions you may have.

What do I need to prepare before I start?

This is not a big deal but I do think it is worth taking the time with your child to get the following things ready before you start. I get that you will both be excited to get cracking but if you haven’t got the right wood to hand your fire will go out fast.

1. Flint and steel 
2. Cotton wool (kept dry in it’s bag)
3. Piece of DRY Silver Birch bark
4. Dry wood (Baby, Mummy, Daddy..I will explain)
5. Emergency water (for burns and extinguishing the fire)
6. Fire square (4 sticks about 0.5m long in adware..this is where the fire goes and you sit outside it)

What wood do I need?

The word you use must be small and dry this is vital. 

This is a challenge in the winter as everything is wet. Your best bet of finding dry wood is to pull down any thin branches that are hanging in the trees. This is dry because it has been hanging off the ground. 

If the wood has touched the ground in the winter it is usually no good for the fire because it is wet. 

I made the video for this thinking that most people may be doing this in their garden, especially at the moment with us being in ‘lockdown’. With this in mind and the fact that it is winter, I would use sticks that you get for a log burner you know the ones that they sell at petrol stations, garden centres, or on the roadside. 

These are too thick as they are but you can have a lot of fun splitting these using a knife and a mallet. 

By splitting them you can create smaller sticks and small wood shavings that will light really well because they are small and the wood inside once split is really dry. 

The smaller you can make these initial sticks the better and t’s good fun to take your time and master your craft. 

Modeling this to your children and doing this together has so many rewards. I have included this part in the video.

In what order do I put the wood on the fire?

I spent such a lot of time when I first started lighting fires, ferreting around on the damp floor looking for something to put on my fire to keep it going when I had not prepared properly. 

This is why it shouldn’t be a surprise to me that children are exactly the same. 

At Forest School, when you say let’s go collect some hanging branches nobody wants to do it because they are excited to get started, then when it comes to keeping that flame going everyone is like..

 ‘where are the sticks…quick I need sticks’ 

Sometimes you have to go through the process of the fire going out several times to realise that preparing your sticks is essential. 

Once you have split your sticks organise them into 

small

medium 

large.

 I call them Baby, Mummy and Daddy. You should have 3 piles of sticks in front of you ready to go.

Where shall I set the fire up in my garden?

I would say on a surface that you don’t mind burning. I don’t mean it will set on fire but if you make a fire on your grass it will scorch it. 

Use a little metal bowl, like the one in the video, to protect surfaces and also this keeps it off the wet ground. In the video, I use my patio which is flagged. If you put water on the surface first it won’t heat up as quickly so won’t scotch/discolour.

How do I explain how to stay safe?

The best way is to ask your child how they would stay safe. 

This means you are not telling them stuff they already know and you are finding out things you didn’t know they knew! 

Sometimes I say we are going to be danger detectives and we search out what could be dangerous. 

After this ask how can we keep ourselves safe?

Example of possible answers:

You: What can you see that could hurt us?

Your child: The fire

What could happen?

It can burn us

How can we stop this from happening?

Sit out of the fire square

Take our gloves off

Have some emergency water ready

Make sure no toggles are hanging down that could catch fire

Roll our sleeves up

Sit in a safe position

Always have an adult with us

How do I explain how to maintain the fire?

Once you have gone through steps 1, 2 and 3 you are at the hardest bit which is getting the wood to light. Here are some tips to give your child:

1. Choose from the baby pile the wood that is smallest
2. If you feel nervous about putting it in the fire, then watch me for longer.
3. Notice how I feed the fire from the side. Why is this? (If you feed from the top you will burn yourself because it is hottest over the top of the flame.
4. Feed quickly with small sticks but not so quickly that the flame is smothered, this comes from practice.
5. Move on to Mummy sticks when the flame is established and can take a larger stick.
6. If you are nervous about feeding the fire then put lots of small baby sticks/shavings on first to burn through and then feed with longer sticks so you don’t need to come as close to the flame with your fingers.

When is it time to toast a marshmallow?

When you have a flame you can potentially start to toast a marshmallow.

 For the best results make sure the fire has been maintained for about 5 minutes then it will have some hot embers which are good for toasting marshmallows rather than setting them on fire.

Why does my fire keep going out?

It might need more oxygen 

1. once the fire has got a few hot embers you can blow gently on it to increase the flames. 
2. You could have put too much wood on it
3. The way you have built the fire may not be letting oxygen into the bottom of the fire. Wigwam structure is a good one to start.

There may be no fuel

1. Sometimes there isn’t enough fuel because the fire has burned through it.
2. Sometimes the fuel is too wet

How do I put it out?

Super important that you teach your child to always put the fire out safely

1. Spread the fire/ashes with a stick (this puts the flame out)
2. Pour the emergency water slowly around the outside of the fire, working your way inwards.
3. Pour lots of water until it is cool

If you weren’t in your garden you would make sure that the space is left as you found it, with no evidence of fire. 

I hope this is helpful in your fire lighting journey. 

It is important to remember that this is a process and can feel very challenging at times but it will build emotional resilience and patience which you can’t put a value on in life.

Please subscribe if you haven’t already I have got loads of tips and tricks to help you enjoy being outside with your children.

Have a lovely weekend.

Sally x