Starting fires with wet wood

I cheat a little these days. I make my fire with all the small sticks, cardboard, paper and the like. Then put about 1/2 cup of petrol over it. Stand back a little and throw a match or poke with a burning tissue on a long stick.

There is also Hexi tabs you could use. (Solid fuel tablets used in the old small camping stoves) They will burn for about 10-15 minutes. Sold as a box of 4 tablets (by memory) and about the size of a panadol tablet box.

Heximine Tablets is the name (Spelling?)

I carry a packet of fire starters with me all the time and heat beads for the camp oven they work well and last a long while too.

Baz.

Those little jiffy firelighters, or hex stove tablets work a treat as well. just pop one or two, broken in half, under a pile of wet twigs. Try to avoid too smaller kindling, as it burns too quickly. The idea is to use, say, 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick twigs, and get them burning, and have the inch thick ones about 5 inches above drying out.

I spose you could stash some around your exhaust to dry for a while....

I dont think you can light diesal with a match you need to mix it with about 25% petrol

Firestarters, wetwood, plus old sump oil mixed with petrol..
Works awesome.

As said, diesel wont ignite on its own. Your beer tin idea would work with petrol to a point. You need heat to dry the wood out.

people get too carried away putting 4ton logs on straight away with 3 twigs round the side, you need to build up slowly when wet.

YFMV

I usually find that splitting wet twigs & timber works better than trying to dry them from the outside. Usually dryer inside.

Cheers

Jackablue

Theres always a good supply of fairly dry kindling near the base of the trunks of small bushes. Smaller dead bushes although wet on the outside are usually dry on the inside. Grab half a bucket of this and 20 minutes of patience and you'll have no dramas.

I carry a plastic bag of wood wool the type that is used for packaging.
Light and cheep
Ray

Here is a primitive idea that has worked.
As a scout leader, we once had to camp after hours of pouring rain. From the lee side of a tree, get a pile of dead strands of grass, place grass under your clothes aginst your stomach and do other things for half an hour. The dead grass will dry sufficiently to start burning.
Your stomach is cold only for a while. Perhaps use a wife or kids for this. You will need good powers of persuation.

When all the odds are against us we use an old rag or towel wrapped up tightly and soak it with diesel. Will burn for ages and gets the fire going everytime. Just a note of caution however...watch out that your choice of material is not one of the partner's favourites.....could get real ugly!!

Save your old tea bags , let them dry out , pack them in a jar and pour in some kero...great cheap good fire lighters...easy..cheers

once you have a small fire going put larger stuff on top wet or dry
then get your 12v bed inflater .plug it in then feed the fire with air,like a blacksmith would do ,gets very hot quickly.

Find the direr side of a strigny bark tree and pull off a few handfulls. Pull all the stringy bits apart and scrunch it all up ( in cirular motion bitween your hands) until you get something not unlike a birds nest. Next collect as many dry skinny twigs. Then with great care, arrange the whole setup with the stringy bark in the middle with some of the twigs around the outside and top. Light it. and slowly add more and bigger twigs. It's a very long process so I'd use it only when there are no other avenues ie. firelighter / diesel etc

R.

Just to add more fuel to the fire,I carry dried tea bays soaked in kerro, work as good as firelighters and you never seem to run out.

another good one is cheesels but may stop you eating them when you realise how much fat must be in them to burn like a fire lighter.

Yeah I use firelighters, however a friend of mine uses petrol and boy it works well!
Stack the fire up nicley with kiddling etc. Pour some fuel into a paper cup, put the cup in the middle down the bottom and - Wamo instant hot fire.

a few weeks back i was told that you open a good bottle of red and begin to drink the contents.
take the cork and light it...works like the firelighters..so i'm told..
now, i dont know if this is true as i hav'nt tried it....but i am saving the corks and will test it out one day.....

only hope that doesnt turn out not to work or i'll have to give up the wine tasting...and that would be a bummer ...so until i get around to testing which will be a long time into the future..............................hic! pardon me!...

I carry a .34kg LPG gas bottle with a burner tip on it Lights anything quick smart!

The best thing that I have seen recently was an attachment which connects to your bbq gas bottle. It was a length of 25X25X3 square tube about 800=900mm long with a series of holes drilled at one end. At the other end, a gas line was connected and you simply turn on the gas and light the end which has the series of holes. When burning it acts just like a bbq burner and you just shove it directly into the fireplace. It doesn't matter if the wood is soaking wet as it will dry out any wood no matter how wet it is. It will also light largish logs of wood without kindling.
I was shown this by a member of the Yota 4x4 club here in VIC and which he had built himself, luckily he gave me his business card and as we're both in the same welding game I'll give him a call so I can have a closer look and then build my own.
I think I'll make mine out of stainless steel though, because I can :-)
I'm currently building a stainless steel rear light holder for the back of my Patrol and a stainless steel framed false floor so I can get my tent out easily without having to remove everything 1st.
Regards Andrew.

Get your half can and fill it with diesel then shove a wad of toilet paper in it. The toilet paper soaks up the fuel and you light it like a candle. Old paper drink or coffee cups used the same way are also great as you don't have to dig them out of the fire later.

I carry the small portable propane blow torch in the tool box for emergency soldering jobs. Never used it for soldering yet but used it heaps of times to light the fire when there is no kindling or wood is wet. Stuff the diesel - makes everything stink.

DON'T WHATEVER YOU DO USE PETROL IN ANY WAY!!

It's just too volatile and unpredictable. I used to work in refinery operations and I've seen too many guys pull this "oh just put some petrol on it" trick. Sometimes, it just vapourises enough to draw you back to the fire to see why it's not burning. Then ,,,,,,,,,whooompah! It gets ya.

I had a mate that did this when out prosepcting with his wife 'n kids. He went back to the fire - broke all the rules - with the can still in his hand! Whooompah,,,,,,,,,up it went and up went the can with it!! 5 litres of it! Spent 3 months in hospital and now has to wear a big hat 'cos he aint got 'n neve will have any hair! This happened 150kms from Kalgoorlie and he was in a lot of pain for 3 hrs in the back of 4WD.

Use diesel or kero or some of the other ideas above.

AND remember, there is more chemical energy in a litre of petrol than there is in a stick of powergel dynamite. It just needs to be contained right to make the big bang.

Bilbo

You know when you leave your paint brushes in the turps too long and it evaporates away. It leaves a coloured jelly like mess in the bottom of the old jam jar.

I once saw my farther in law scrape some out and use it to get the bar-b going. It worked way better than I thought it would. Come to think of it, it worked way better than he thought it would. No eyelashes for about a week.

Duncs

I am flabberghasted by the many different ways (some sound a bit risky) to start a fire that you have come up with.
If the idea for the fire is getting warm, why not try the oldest method of all which is rubbing two sticks together. Who needs matches anyway?
You may not succeed in lighting a fire but you'd get warm in trying to, nevertheless :-)

Klaus

I have seen the diesel in a coke can method used. It works very well and is very easy to get going.

Spend about 20 minutes collecting a large pile of wet sticks and logs and stack them into a pile. By now you are warm.... Now go to the car and pull out the matches and the gas stove. Now you can cook your food and you are warm. After meal, take wife to bed early & if you haven't tried anything stupid like lighting a fire with petrol, you've got a better than 50/50 chance you'll keep each other warm.

need some paper to light under twigs etc then slowly drip diesel onto that and it will ignite into bigger fire