Fancied myself as a bit of an expert, but no! I recently acquired a sort of firebox/ log burner thing, essentially for the patio but poss for farmers field style camping: basically an open brazier. My first attempt was fairly successful- I used newspaper, some kindling wood and once they'd taken, a few compressed sawdust 'logs' (expensive, for chimineas- B & Q) THEN some hardware store bought firewood scatted logs, finally, once they were all ablaze, some seasoned pine logs, complete with bark. One almost false start necessitating some more kindling shoved underneath, AND I was somewhat surprised how I had nothing but smoke for the first hour or so! but a good 2 hours later I had the desired effect.
However, tonight I did all the same things but used just the seasoned pine logs (2" across, not great stumps!) at the 'log' stage, but after 2 hours, I gave up as there was just no heat in the thing, just smoke and no actual flame at all- and it took approximately 10 minutes for the whole sorry, smouldering mess to go out once I'd opened it up.
What am I doing wrong?
I build a little pyramid of kindling round my newspaper, I let that catch before adding slightly thicker wood, I don't sling huge logs on it til I feel it's ready etc- the only 2 differences from building a fire in an indoor grate that I can see are not having an adjustable underfloor draught and using coal indoors.
One important thing to realise about log fires (as opposed to coal fires) whether indoors or outdoors, is that log fires burn best on a bed of ash and embers with no air entering from below. Wood burns down from the top, the flames are actually the burning gases given off by the logs. Therefore, if you are using a brazier, you might be better off finding a suitable steel plate (heavy though) to lay on the bottom to give the desired effect. Of course that's why most bonfires are burnt successfully on the ground, so if your site allows this you should get better results, especially using G'Winger's advice above.
Thanks. I hadn't really appreciated the thing about having the logs on a base. The firebox does have a solid metal base- I think I may have allowed hollows to form underneath the burning logs?
Best bit of kit we always have with us for resucitating a dying fire is the pump for the air beds. Aim the nozzle at the base of the fire and pump it with steady slow strokes until the base of the fire is glowing bright red. When you stop you should see the flames jump to life. May need to repeat. Certainly saves facefuls of smoke and ash trying to blow at the thing yourself. And you get a much steadier focussed stream of air.
As with any log fire it is always better to use seasoned timber, ie timber that is approx 12mths or older, green timber, or fresh timber is much more difficult to burn and with some types of wood the timber might 'spit' more.
My daughter borrowed our tent and the idiot in the next tent decided to light a fire box type brazier with scraps of local wood. RESULT; 1 pair of designer trousers with burn holes and one nylon tent with melted holes all over the flysheet. Open fires should be banned from tent areas of camping sites.
Just make sure you don't light it up wind of someone who has the washing out or might not wish to breath in the stench of your fire on anotherwise pleasant summers day!
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Topic: How do you build a camp fire??
