Fire tending

[Sean Gadhar]

I was looking at another post up in "Photos" Winter Camp 2015

And it got me thinking about tending fire.

It always seemed to me the best way in a winter camp with more then two people in it, was to have someone awake & tending the fire in shifts.

Yet I have never gotten my camp mates to go along with the idea.

It's always " No, no we'll be fine. I want to get some SLEEP! If it gets to cold, one of us will get up & stoke the fire :yakyak:"

2 hours later everyone is awake (you can tell by their breathing) but we are all holding still & hoping the other guy will be the one to get up

2 hours later (or less) ...the same thing.

Has anyone tried tending the fire in shifts? How did it work out? And did you have to use a gun to get your campmates to agree :haha:

 

[coloradoclyde]

If I'm warm and snug it would take a tow truck to pull me out of my sack :haha:

Usually someone has to get up and empty their bladder.

Or we sit up half the night BS-ing
One year deer huntin Me and a friend sat up around the fire until dawn and solved all the worlds problems

Went back packing one winter and the weather turned really cold. A friend went to sawing wood with a bow saw to keep warm and I sat and burnt it :haha: by the time we left he had a cord of wood stacked up. :rotf:

 

[tenngun]

:haha: :thumbsup: .... More blankets less fire, that's what banking a fire is for.

 

[Bagman]

Build a top down fire and it will burn all night. It's built in the shape of a pyramid and you light the top. It burns it's way down through the center. If you pack the base layers with dirt to fill in the cracks at the ends..it should burn all night.

 

[satx78247]

OR a couple of good-sized (say about 12" diameter) green hickory or black locust logs will usually burn all night, so that you have a bed of coals ready for morning coffee.

yours, satx

 

[Sean Gadhar]

Yep.... them was the augments for not tending the fire.

"My bag says it's good to zero and it's only getting down to 10f so I'll be fine."

"Well, if you use the right wood....."

"You just have to build the fire so it banks...."

Me I'd rather get 6 hours sleep with a good fire going & take my turn to tend it for 2 or 3. But I'll be dogged if I can talk anyone else into it (as seen here :surrender: )

You'd think I was selling bone saws at a PETA convention :idunno:

:wink:

 

[Grumpa]

They're all afraid that they'll catch Hell when everyone else wakes up cold...and finds the "fire tender" sound asleep! :haha:

 

[coloradoclyde]

All this talk of cold and building a fire reminded me of this

http://youtu.be/RBB06RLmCcU

Its a good film. :grin:

 

[Grumpa]

A good film, indeed. I just watched it, first time, and it all rang true. Thanks, CC.

Now I'm going up to bed, and get under the blankets. :shake:

 

[Jaeger]

The first two years I did a winter camp we had sort of an Iroquois-style longhouse with a big smoke hole. Usually the guy nearest the fire had sticks of good firewood close at hand and would put one on every hour or so. Even though it was vented, we were like smoked hams by the end of the weekend, and had to put up with a little cough for about 3 days afterward. Now, with a lean-to, we just stay wrapped up, and to heck with the fire. We stay warm anyway. Much less smoky!

 

[robert reed]

Its a good film.

:hatsoff:
Thanks CC

 

[Sean Gadhar]

Over the weekend I tried something new (at least new to me) I was in the Book Cliffs & had built a fire ring, then set a large flat rock on some wood as a seat by the fire.

When it was time to head to bed I noticed that the flat rock was about the same size as the inside of the fire ring :hmm:

So I place some wood on the coals and my rock on top of the wood. The fire burned well for a while (I could see the light of it from inside my A frame. Then about 5 hours later when I had to get up I flipped the rock off the pit & found a double hand full of red coals to restart the fire. :grin:

This was VARY dry wood left from people cutting fire wood maybe 2 years ago (gray no bark) I think with better wood or even a little more care (bigger rounds) It would have lasted 8 hours with out a problem.

 

[Woods Dweller]

I never trusted anyone to help keep a fire going. So, this is what I have always done. I set up a small lean-to [7x6 canvas] next to the fire. I would have a lot of fire wood within arm reach [pile wood on ends of my lean-to, help keep wind out] I would have a few punk logs / rotten logs they smolder for a long time. During the night when I got cold I just reach over and throw a log on the fire. I would also make a log reflector on the opposite side of fire, this reflected heat into me. I sleep better than guys in there big tents.