The bringer of warmth, cooker of meat, and provider of a romantic atmosphere in a log cabin, fire has held a special and primal place in our hearts ever since early humans learned how to make it and control it—marking a dramatic shift in human habits. It also ushered in a new era for mankind, the reduced risk from uncooked food and the ability to stay warm in colder climates, among many others. So, how to start a bonfire in 2023? These are the safety tips you need to consider this year.
Given its historical importance to human life, it is surprising how few people actually know how to start a bonfire and have to ask “what is the proper way to start a fire?” or “how to make a bonfire”. We rely so heavily on modern appliances to warm ourselves and prepare the best food recipes that we’ve forgotten one of the most important basic skills a human can have.
How do you start a bonfire?
So you don’t have to ask anyone “how do you start a bonfire?”, we’ve put together this guide on the best way to start a bonfire safely this summer… and all year round, for that matter! When you head out on your next glamping getaway and want to start a bonfire to roast marshmallows or tell ghost stories, you’ll know how to do so safely—protecting yourself, your fellow glampers, and the natural setting that surrounds you. So if you’re looking to create bonfire history and you’ve been struggling to keep those flames going, find out how to start a fire pit, keep reading and watch the rise of the dead bonfire on your next camping vacation.
What you need to start a fire in 2023: preparing the pit
When starting a summer bonfire, step one is understanding exactly what you need to start a fire in 2023. The first thing you’ll need to do is choose a good location for your fire for preparing the pit. It needs to be on bare earth, sand, or gravel—anywhere that can’t catch fire itself. (Dry or dead grass is an absolute no-no.) Visualize an eight-foot safety perimeter, and clear any flammable materials within that area. If you’re in a wooded area, make sure there are no low-hanging branches or vines that the flames could reach (we would hate to think of any nearby luxury treehouses going up in flames).
Ideally, the fire should have an open sky above it, so that smoke doesn’t rise up into any branches nor affect any nests or nearby cabin rentals in the woods!
Once you’ve chosen your spot, start to dig out a pit that is a few inches deep, which will prevent the fire from spreading. As the wood turns into embers, it will fall into the pit rather than spread outwards. A perimeter of rocks also stops the spread of embers and ashes, especially in windy areas. It’s also a good idea to have extinguishing materials nearby in case you need to put a fire out quickly in an emergency.
What three things are needed to start a fire in 2023
So what three things are needed to start a fire in 2023? There are three main materials you will need to start your bonfire:
- Tinder: Bonfire 101; for tinder find dry pieces of thin material that catch fire and burn very quickly. Good examples include straw, dry grass, and leaves, newspaper, cotton balls, and even cattail reeds.
- Kindling: Bigger pieces of flammable materials that catch fire quickly but burn slower than tinder. Good examples include twigs, thin branches, pine cones, and tightly-rolled newspapers.
- Firewood: A standard log, about the length of one’s forearm, and what most people envision when you picture a fire. These burn slowly and provide warmth for a long period of time.
Once you have these three things, you light the tinder, which is used to light the kindling, and then use the kindling to light the firewood. Try to collect twice as much as you think you’ll need because there’s nothing worse than running out of materials before the fire is ready.
How to lay a fire: outdoor essential tips
Next up, how to lay a fire…Once you have your tinder, kindling, and firewood to create a bonfire worthy of the name, you can begin to arrange the materials, which must be done in a specific way, otherwise known as a fire lay. As an homage to glamping, we’re going to go with the tipi fire lay, although there are many variations you can choose from.
- Collect your tinder into a bundle, and place it in the middle of the fire pit.
- Use three or four twigs or sticks to form a tipi structure that contains the tinder bundle.
- Continue adding to the tipi structure, all while leaving a small opening upwind so you can access the tinder inside. Make sure to build upwards rather than outwards and leave spaces between the sticks for air to move freely.
- If you have a couple of small or thin pieces of firewood, you can add these, too, as long as their weight does not compromise the structure.
How to start a bonfire safely when you’re camping in the wilderness in 2023
Take your lighter or matches, and carefully light the tinder inside through the opening you left upwind. Leaving it upwind ensures that the wind pushes the flames through the tinder bundle. You may have to blow carefully to encourage the tinder to catch fire. If done correctly, the tinder will light the kindling, creating a quickly burning fire. At this point, you can slowly add the firewood, being careful not to suffocate the flames. As the anonymous quote says, “A fire is like a child; you must look after it carefully in the beginning so that it can look after you later.”
Next up: safely extinguishing a fire
Now for the easy part! Remember that container of water you carefully prepared before lighting the fire? Take it and pour it slowly on top of the fire until the hissing stops. Don’t stand directly above the fire to avoid breathing in the smoke. Safely extinguishing a fire is easy if done correctly and sensibly!
Once you’ve done this, use a stick and stir the ashes into the dirt, which may reveal embers that weren’t extinguished by the water. Put these out with more water, or simply stamp them into the ground with your foot. Make sure you’re wearing shoes with thick soles, though!
If there are any sizable sticks or logs left, scrape away the surface to check they are not still burning. Finally, give everything the palm test: Hold your palms up to the embers and logs. If you can’t feel any heat radiating off them, it is safe to leave.
In the unlikely event that you don’t have any or enough water on hand, the extinguishing process is pretty similar. You’ll use dirt or sand to cover the embers instead, which will deprive them of oxygen and stop the fire. Be careful not to fully cover the fire, as this could create extremely high temperatures under the dirt or sand that could reignite later. Once the flames have been extinguished, use a stick to mix the embers around in the dirt/ or sand to check that there isn’t anything still glowing, and then give it the aforementioned palm test.
One final tip for starting a fire in 2023: how to create a spark with no lighter or matches
When starting a fire, how to create a spark with no lighter or matches is one that puzzles everyone at first. Perhaps you left your lighter at home or it’s run out of lighter fluid. Maybe you fell into a creek earlier, and now your matches are sodden and useless. In order to be prepared for every possible scenario, make sure you tuck some flint, steel, and char cloth in your backpack before you head out into the wilderness on your solo glamping trip.
The steel is a C-shaped piece of tempered steel; the char cloth is a piece of sooty linen that has been burned in a low-oxygen environment, which catches fire easily and burns slowly; and the flint is a hard gray rock with a sharp edge. All of these can be found in any camping supply store. What’s more? This old-school method of starting fires will impress your friends, won’t run out of gas, and can’t break. (You can still lose the materials, though, so be careful!)
The idea is to strike the steel against the sharp edge of the flint to create a spark, setting the char cloth aflame, which can then be transferred to your bundle of tinder. From this point, you can continue as described above, blowing the nascent flames carefully until your fire is blazing away.
Hot Tip: If weather conditions are windy, you may have to hold the char cloth on top of the flint, so that the sparks don’t have to travel very far
For those who prefer a visual, this video will show you how to create a spark with these materials:
Now that you how to start a campfire and you’ve got your bonfire lit and raring to go for some outdoor cooking, sit back and enjoy socializing with your travel group. After all, what is a bonfire without chat and banter under the stars?
I thought your demo-video on the flint and steel was excellent. I was first exposed to the flint and steel method in the Boy Scouts. I never seemed to get the hang of it and was never very successful at it so I tended to move toward more conventional methods with matches and such. After watching, I think I’ll to start my next campfire with a flint and steel. Thanks!