Starting a fire???

[RayDoolittle]

Maybe a stupid question but one I've pondered for years... my reading focuses primarily on letters, diaries, and journal accounts. I can't count how many times I've read of long marches through the rain, the soldiers soaked to the bone, and the first thing they do when they halt is start a fire. VERY rarely do I read accounts of the men being unable to start a fire -- much more common that they weren't allowed due to proximity to the enemy.

My question is this -- how did they get their fires started? It had to be more than matches. Did they use gun powder? Kerosene? Something I'm not even familiar with? This is just a curiosity that I've had for years.

THANKS!
Ray

 

[DixieRifles]

Were you the one who posted a similar question earlier?

If matches were not available, they could resort to the old method: Flint & Steel.
You need good kindling. It is easy to start a fire if you keep some kind of starter material and then have dry kindling. What I don't understand is how they start fires on a snowy day with trees dripping with water and ice.

In this video, you see the Mountain Man pull out a black material. That is usually a charred cloth. You can even cook a piece of T-shirt until it is burned but not burning by cooking it inside a closed container. It takes a spark immediately.

 

[CivilWarTalk]

If you spend a lot of time outdoors, you can learn some basic bushcraft, there are ways to find dry tinder any time of year, especially in the woods. There are also some types of materials that will burn, regardless of how wet they got on the outside, so you look for those as well. The issue is, the average modern person probably wouldn't put the effort into looking for what is needed, and give up before they found it.

Finally, as far as I remember, some soldiers knew how to keep a hot coal stowed away and carry it for hours, and start a new fire from an old hot coal, and once you have one fire, I'm sure other soldiers "shared" the flame to start their own tinder piles....

There are old school ways to do this, but it's mostly forgotten knowledge today.

 

[Viper21]

My father in law used to take pitch, & boil it down to a liquid. Then pour that liquid into old copenhagen cans. Once cooled, was compact, easy & lightweight to pack. Most importantly, would start a fire even in the rain. He said this was taught to him (somewhat) by, his grandfather who lived in the 19th century.

I'd bet folks have been using pitch to start fires for many generations. Like CivilWarTalk said, most of this type of stuff, is somewhat forgotten knowledge today.

 

[alan polk]

I would suspect most of them used what was near at hand and also ubiquitous: paper powder cartridges. It's not uncommon for relic hunters to find melted mini balls in old campfire pits, undoubtedly left over from starting fires.

 

[Seduzal]

To get a fire started first reach in to your pocket down in the bottom feel in the corners and you can feel something like cotton it's dry stuff round it up and all you need is spark like from flint & steel. When in the woods looking for material to burn when it's raining look for a Gray Burch tree peel off some of the bark . This bark will burn when wet or dry.

 

[SWMODave]

Source Appalachian Ways


Welcome to CWT Ray!