It amazes me how many different types of people are at a campsite.  Over the weekend I went to Meramec State Park in Missouri for a 24 hour camp/hike.  We stayed at an established campsite along with probably a hundred other people.  Next to us was a truck rocking country music.  We joked that they were probably going to kill their battery, but the music was good so we didn’t complain by any means.  Across the dirt road from our campsite were a bunch of college age kids.  When we pulled up, one was passed out on the picnic table.  I’m going to assume they had been floating all day.  Later someone from their group climbed up on the table to check their friend’s breathing.  That had to be one of the smartest things I’ve ever seen from a group of college age float trippers.  He was clearly ok, so I didn’t feel bad mocking him in my head.  Then there are the people who bring the massive RVs and set up for one night.  I can understand wanting to be comfortable, but really? Over compensating for something?  This campsite had water and electric at many of the lots, so there were a lot of RVs all over the place.  Most of them had kids running in and out of them.  The street was overrun with kids ridding their bikes and that gave me flashbacks to my childhood.  I used to cruise the same streets pretending I was racing.

After spending a few hours at the river, relaxing, we headed back to the campsite to start a fire before it got dark.  Other’s already had their fire up and going, so we built a tepee set up with logs and put kindling in a lean to.  It was a solid set up that I’d used many times, so I wasn’t expecting anything crazy.  (A quick note, the area had about two days worth of rain so everything was wet.  We bought the wood from a store up the road and it was not wet.)  After trying to get the kindling to light for about 15 minutes we finally gave in and decided to use some helpers.  All we had was kerosene for our camp stove.  I was trying not to use it because of how kerosene burns (fast), but we were struggling so out it came.  I soaked a couple of the sticks in it and let them sit for a bit.  Then, doing my best to stay away from the fire I dropped in a piece of paper that was lit. Poof, the fire jumped and nearly went out as fast as it started.  Luckily it was enough to get the kindling going.  We added some more on top of it and had a nice little flame going.

Now we concentrated on the main logs.  We put the smaller sticks in a place where they’d be close enough to the large logs that the flame would touch and waited.  And waited.  And waited.  We had to add more and more smaller sticks to keep the flame going, but the main logs would not catch.  After about 30 minutes of a solid flame and nothing to show for it the frustration level was increasing fast.  By now it’s dark and we could see the other campers’ fires going.  The last thing I wanted to do was ask one of them for help, but the person I was with went over and borrowed someone’s lighter fluid.  I was so mad at this fire that I didn’t mind using the liquid.  We added some a few times and really had our fire going.  However, a minute later the fire was nearly out.  The thing about lighter fluid is – while it burns slower than kerosene, it still burns extremely fast.  It’s great for getting a fire started when you’re just trying to get a match to catch, it is not so good for keeping a fire going.  That was the case for us.  The wood we were using as our main logs was very hard, which tends to not really catch on fire, but turn into charcoal.

At this point we gathered as many sticks and dead branches as we could find.  Every 10 minutes or so we’d add a few more to the fire and we had a nice flame going most of the evening.  The main logs never really caught, but instead acted as the sides of a stove.  The fire pit was scorching hot thanks to all the sticks turning into coals.  All we had to do was add another stick and it would nearly instantly catch.  Not a bad fire considering our log issue.

I think the biggest thing to remember about building a fire is this: no matter where you buy wood from, make sure you have enough smaller sticks to really get the fire going.  Looking around, most of the people had a big flame for a bit (thanks to small sticks and lighter fluid) then nothing.  No matter how much fluid they added, their fire never caught.  They didn’t have enough smaller sticks to keep it sustained until their main logs caught.  In this case since everyone bought their logs from the same place (I’m assuming), no one’s main logs ever did really catch.  Our fire was the only one which looked like a fire for most of the night, but only because we gathered enough small and mid sized sticks to cover it.