A great family goal for 2017 is teaching your family how to build a fire.

Fire truly separates us from the beasts and is indispensable for so much of what we do and enjoy.  

Every responsible young adult should be taught at an early age how to build fires in less than perfect conditions. My dad made sure we could build a fire with only one match in grade school.

It’s a wise precaution to store matches and a knife in your car and home as well as your ATV, 4-wheeler, bicycle, motorbike, boat, canoe or bass boat.

Should an emergency arise, the ability to build a fire, stay warm and signal for help cannot be overstated. Experienced rescue people know how important building a fire is to survival –– it’s the “key” to staying alive.

But, back to actually building that fire with a match and no paper, lighter fluid or other aid. Just how do you do so, what technique do you use?

Fire and heat burns upward and flames rise. As a youngster, I constantly burned my fingers trying to start fires. My dad would smile at me and patiently ask why I was getting burned.

I didn’t know until he pointed out tilting the match downward caused the flame to quickly burn up the match itself. Demonstrating, he lit a match, tilted it down, the match quickly burned up the stem and had to be dropped. Then he lit a match and held it angled up.

The match burned hot, but much longer and you could hold onto it until the flame burned completely down to your fingers.

Dad then asked how to use that principle to build my fire? I quickly caught on, the twigs had to be “above the match”.  

Using a small, dry Y-shaped twig –– imagine a slingshot shape –– he inserted it into the ground with the Y up creating a two-to-three-inch high space underneath. Next he put small, very thin twigs onto the Y, one end resting on the ground, but leaving an opening like a teepee door. This left room for the lit match to fit underneath the twigs, the rising flame hitting the bottom twigs, they in turn burning upward catching the twigs above them.

It’s critical to be patient! Every person building a fire for the first time wants to rush. They have a picture in their mind of a fire consisting of large logs, but don’t realize large logs take a tremendous amount of heat to begin burning and you’re starting with just a single match. You need to gradually increase limb size, building your fire up larger and hotter before bigger limbs can ever hope to catch. This takes time.

So, insert the Y in the ground piling the absolute smallest, dry, tiny, needle-sized twigs you can find and carefully lay them, twig by twig, into the Y in a teepee shape with an opening on one side large enough for the match. The twig thickness above the Y must be at least three inches deep or more.

With a handful of spare twigs in your hand inset your burning match underneath the teepee of twigs until they catch. Immediately begin to carefully place more thin twigs over the hottest area until it is burning briskly and then continue to add slightly larger twigs, no more than twice the diameter of the first.

Very gradually increase the stick size until you are using one-inch thick limbs and larger.

While searching for firewood, before building the fire, look for dry limbs with no bark. These smoke less than bark covered limbs and usually are drier as well. Start small working up to two-inch diameter size. Two inch limbs and larger become increasingly difficult to break in half. Snap larger limbs between two closely spaced tree trunks or toss a large heavy rock on them with one end raised above the ground and resting on a log, rock or bank. You may also burn them in half.

If you’ve ever spent a night in the woods without fire, you know how miserable that can be. If not, it’s best not to experience a fireless night –– take my word for it. Campfires keep you warm, heat food or drink and perhaps most importantly provides light and security in the darkness.

Always build your fire against a rock or other reflective surface if you can and remove all loose leaves from the area surrounding your fire to keep it contained.

I’ve no idea how many hundreds of fires I’ve built over the years. Whether to toast my sandwich hunting or fishing, building a campfire or lighting the wood stove at home, I always hear my father’s voice challenging me to do so with only one match and no paper. He would always remind me my life may depend on that ability someday.

I am not sure my life has depended on it yet, but one deer season I fell through the ice crossing a stream in 15-degree weather. From my waist down, I was soaked and my clothing began freezing immediately. Could I have walked two miles to the car without freezing solid? Probably, but I quickly gathered wood and built a roaring fire instead; drying my clothing, socks, gloves and boots and finally toasted my sandwich in comfort, setting it down to shoot a buck that ran up as I ate.

Thanks, Dad.