Campstoves

Making Fire

Any backpacker should know how to make a fire drill or a fire saw, what woods
will produce friction coals and what woods won't. You should also know what
pieces of technology you're carrying that might provide the essential spark in an
emergency. If things go terribly, suddenly wrong, you're likely to have bits and
pieces of civilization lying all about. A battery and a piece of wire will make a
spark, and a spark properly nurtured makes a flame. It would be a shame to
freeze to death with a GPS in your pocket if you botched your last match. Might
be rough on the GPS but you could rig it to start a fire.

There is usually a way to get a fire going with what you have. Many compasses
have magnifying lenses -- on a sunny day that lense will start a fire. Proper
tinder is essential -- you can burn a hole in white notebook paper with a
magnifier's beam but that's not enough to make a flame. A white cotton ball
won't even scorch.

If you really are good with a fire drill, a shoelace might make a decent bowstring
to drive it. I think this might be the last thing I'd try, because I've worn out a lot of
cordage trying to start fires this way. I'd like to keep my shoe laces for my
shoes, if possible. All through the procedure of trying to build a friction fire I'd be
cussing myself for forgetting to bring my lighter. Easy is best.

Most of us aren't going to be marooned on a desert island without matches.
Actually we won't even need to build a fire when we're out camping. I used to do
that all the time, years ago. When I was a kid growing up feral in the woods,
building a fire was almost a ritual. I felt that doing it right, with one match and in
any conditions, was a mark of skill and maturity. That briefly carried over into my
first years of hiking, when I still felt that a campfire was an essential part of
camping.

Then I got interested in backpacking above the treeline where there are more
rocks than fuel. I bought a campstove. Up above the treeline in the snow, you
probably won't find ready sources of firewood. I quickly got out of the habit of
automatically building a fire as part of a camp. In many places fires are now
banned, and not just because too many times the fires get away. Too many
people gathering fuel puts too much load on the ecosystem. Living without a fire
isn't so tough.

That doesn't mean you should abandon all knowledge of primitive fire, or get lax
in that craft. When you need those skills they had better be sharp. The more
common issue today is finding a campstove that makes the best sense, and if
you combine that with a reliable fire starter, you're all set for most situations.
You have the campstove for everyday needs, and the firestarter for an
emergency campfire.

I use a Svea 123 stove that runs on white gas. A little bottle of gas about the
size of a diet soft drink will give me enough fire for two hot meals a day for two
people for a week. It works in arctic temperatures and on snowpack even at high
altitudes, if you know some simple tricks. The Svea can be nervewracking to
start if you are new to it, but it's dependable. My stove is almost forty years old
and still running on original parts. I don't expect it to break, even though some
unexpected falls over the years have put a few dents in it. I won't trade it out for
anything else.

The Svea isn't the best answer for everyone. Alcohol stoves are light, cheap and
quiet. Wood fired stoves work fine, using debris no one will miss. Canister
stoves may be the most efficient.

For me, the Svea is still the winner in the give and take game of choosing gear.
Some don't like the Svea's hissing roar, but I've come to associate the sound
with hot tea on a cold morning and a warm meal while I stamp the cold out of my
boots. It's a wilderness noise, like the wind in the pines. I'd miss it.