Natural Tinder Bundle

[coloradoclyde]

Tonight I made the most beautiful fire....during the summer I make a small fire almost every night with flint and steel. It's a great way to get rid of lawn debris and construction waste.
Tonight's fire was a top down fire made of dead lilac and small maple twigs (for tinder), using charred punkwood made from high bush cranberry.
Nothing else was used.....no birds nest....
This is not new for me ....
starting a fire is easy to do without a birds nest but you have to blow on it....
For tonight's fire I said to the wife "I'm not going to blow on it and I walked away after adding the punkwood....after about a minute it burst into flames right in front of my wife ....much to her amazement
I have done this before... but it's the first time my wife got to see it...

 

[spudnut]

Watching some show called Fat guys in the woods,The expert with them was trying to catch spark in a wasp nest :rotf:

 

[Brian Heap]

I also keep some pine pitch with me. I find it in old stumps from years ago logging, you can see the yellow pitch in the side of the stump, I just use my ax to cut some good slivers out and my knife to shave off pieces. A wet forest will still provide you with things to use to start your fire, but the pitch pieces will always burn.

 

[Brian Heap]

Out here in AZ when they log, they leave the stumps and after thirty years they are real
pitchy. I use my ax to split off pieces of this pitchy wood, and it's easy to start a fire with, even in rainy weather. Flint and steel, plus some fine grass or pieces of hemp will get a flame going then add the pitchy pieces by shaving off some with a knife, in seconds you have a fire going. These stumps are all over the forest and easily found. :thumbsup:

 

[WKD]

I use "tinder fungus", once a good spark hits it it does not go out.
This fungus is found on birch, cherry and hornbeam.
On birch it is called chagga and is also used to make a tea with great healing properties.

 

[Twisted_1in66]

That stuff is known as fatwood and was originally marketed for fire starting made from Georgia sugar pine if I recall correctly. They took all these incredibly pitchy stumps and cut them into about 9"x 3/8" pieces. I'd take two of them and break them in half, then light the broken ends and set them on top of some newspaper (so they didn't sink in the ash) under my logs. Those guys would start the 3" to 4" logs to burning without any problem, which would then get the big back log burning in my fireplace.

Place where I worked for 27-years used to sell the Georgia fatwood and then they used up all the old stumps on their plantation. So now it comes from a number of places and just known as Fatwood. I would typically buy 30-lbs at a time and use it all winter in Vermont and then later in Virginia. No fireplace here in Washington but that stuff made starting fires easy.

Twisted_1in66 :thumbsup:
Dan

 

[Katahdin]

I carry White Birch ( Paper birch) bark and cedar (Eastern White) bark,You can soak Birch bark over night in a tub of water,get it out shake it off and it will light every time,has a natural oil,wont soak up liquid and burns hot..all else fails combine the Birch and the pitch knobs off a pine or Larch,,,

 

[Crewdawg445]

I'll have to give your above post a try. I find birch very useful!