Fire Expertise - 10 Minute Survival

On 10 Minute Survival today, I talk about fire; how to light it and how to maintain it. 

Make sure you subscribe to the podcast and like the Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/crucialsurvival 

Episode Transcript

Steve Marvell (00:01):
Hi there, my name is Steve Marvell. And this is
crucial. So Apple podcast. Andhere we go with another 10
minute survival programme. Andthis is going to be about fire.
Fire is difficult. No matterwhat anybody says. You can have

(00:25):
a lighter, you can have matches,you can have a steel, you can
have whatever you want. Fire isdifficult, fire is difficult to
light. Fire is difficult tomaintain. Fire is difficult to
maintain through the night. Anddon't let anybody say otherwise.

(00:45):
That is to say we're talkingabout fire in the wild. We're
not talking about somebeautifully seasoned logs and
beautiful kindling in your inwoodburner. Though that can
actually be quite hard itself.
Fire outdoor fire is a practisedskill. It's a practice skill,

(01:08):
net, no matter whether or notit's dry. But yeah, practising
it in the dark and the wet. Andthe cold is a completely
different kettle of fish. Let mejust quickly explain how file
works. Many people will havebeen with familiar with the fire

(01:32):
triangle, that is to say, thethree ingredients of fire, which
you need in order to, to to haveone it is utterly, utterly
incomplete. However, it consistsof oxygen, heat and fuel. And

(01:54):
this is this, it's true to saythat if you remove the fuel,
it's going to go out if youremove the oxygen is gonna go
out. And if you remove the heat,it's gonna go out. But

Unknown (02:16):
it's not the whole story. The story of the heat

Steve Marvell (02:20):
is you need enough heat to light the fuel
that you need to fuel to makethe heat. And this is the most
important cycle in a fire tomaintain a fire, you didn't need

(02:41):
a fire that adds enough heat toheat the fuel that you're going
to put on to such a temperaturethat they've their Flashpoint
set offensively that it willcatch fire it will combust to
use the correct terminology. Youwant complete combustion that is

(03:05):
to say it's on fire rather thansmoking away. The reason you get
smoke is because of incompletecombustion. And the reason you
might get incomplete combustionis things like putting a wet log
on a fire. It's in difficultenough to have enough heat to

(03:30):
light a log, let alone havingenough heat to heat to set fire
to a wet low log. A wet log inorder to set fire to it needs to
be dehydrated. In fact, allboard needs to be dehydrated.

(03:53):
Seasoned light sees didn't workin a sawmill might have a word
can send of 20% or 10% orsomething like that. A wet log
could be loads and loads andloads of water which you totally
have to dehydrate the log inorder to let it to catch fire.

(04:15):
This this is a huge problem. Ifyou're trying to light a fire in
an unknown location where allyou got is the odd wet log the
odd live live ash for instanceyou can you can use a live fire

(04:37):
and so maintaining the fire ishard enough. Yes, if you've got
a great sodding bonfire orfossil forest fire or house
fire, it's generally enough heatto low light anything. Yeah. But
maintaining of a sort of comfortlevel fire a survival level fire

(05:00):
If you don't want to gocollecting the so all of the
wood in the forest to make afire, which is like the
destruction of Sodom andGomorrah, it's just not what
what you're looking for lookingfor a fire, that heats the you

(05:21):
enough to survive, not so bigthat you have to sit miles away
from it, that is the efficiencyproblem that is it. That is a
not not use good use of firewould the energy to go and
collect wood, etc, etc. So weknow we now know how to keep a

(05:47):
fire going. The oxygen componentis if if it's all too tight,
then you're going to have aproblem. So you have to have
things slightly loose enoughthat it keeps keeps going, you
can see that if you're if you'reusing two logs to keep things

(06:07):
together or stones or somethinglike that, you'll be able to see
what's going on, you can parkyour logs. However, let's get
the train three in the roomsorted and that is lighting a
fire. If you work out, workbackwards from a lit fire. To

(06:32):
have a lit fire, you need tohave a smaller, small hot fire.
And in order to make a small hotfire, you need a smaller, hot
fire. The reason is, when youlight something with like
matches, it is irrespective ofthe Nishan sauce you've got when

(06:54):
you light a fire with a lighterfor instance, you can't just
light a log.
There's there's not enough heatfrom your lighter. There is
however, enough heat to light, apiece of paper and I scrunched
up piece of paper. So there'slots and lots of oxygen going

(07:17):
through there. And that isenough heat because there's
quite a lot of in Farish shortlived amount of time to relight
a bunch of skinny twigs, whichactually create quite a lot of
heat, you couldn't have a firelike this all night, you'd be
banging sticks on itcontinuously. So what you need

(07:39):
to do is then light someslightly bigger tweaks, slightly
bigger tweaks and slightlybigger tweaks. And what you'll
find is you have to put lesstwigs on with more slowly more
slowly. And so what youultimately end up with is twigs

(08:00):
that are burning at a centsensible rate. And finally, you
put some branches on and move.
Then put your logs on, Gus,eight minutes, get a wiggle on
Marvel. Some of the basic thingsthat people fail due to when
lighting a fire is they don'thave enough little things like

(08:22):
the size of the pile of littlethings. And they don't have
continuity in that they have abig gap. So we got very, very
small things. And then thisgreat big gap to enormous
things. You need a continuousflow of sizes, and you need a
lot of all of them such that youliked your Tinder. You then you

(08:50):
put your now you get a get awiggle on, you get your new new
sort of sprinkle and it's likespaghetti almost. You sprinkle
your next one on you spreadsprinkle your net lot Lexa on.
Don't faff around this is allprepared, mentally rehearsed.
Next one next set, next set nextset, bigger things, bigger

(09:12):
things, bigger things if thisflames coming off the top you
are you're wasting them, get getthem on. And ultimately, you'll
get there but it's a practiceskill. And you must, must, must
practice and you must must mustsubscribe to this podcast
because there's loads and loadsof 10 minutes for survival

(09:34):
coming up. And in the last 20seconds. I'm just going to say
don't light a pyramid fire. Itjust doesn't work. Pyramid fires
light because people feed itrich, completely continuously.
So light fires different Pleaselearn to light fires

(10:00):
differently, learn to lightfires better. I'm going to post
this on Facebook. So if anybodywants to continue this
discussion, then crucialsurvival training Facebook page,
I'm going to post a link tothis. Let's have a discussion
about it. I can draw somepictures. And in fact, the

(10:23):
pictures will be in the book.
And if you're interested in thebook, go and find me, Steve
Marvell, two L's on Facebook,via the crucial survival
training website, Facebook page,if you like, and let's talk
about the book if you want toget involved in the book,
proofreading or whatever, arejust whatever it might be. So

(10:47):
that's 10 minutes arrival. Nexttime, no idea what I'm going to
do, come and make somesuggestions. There's a
mastermind group down onFacebook. Let's get some
suggestions as to what you wantto hear about. My name is Steve
Marvell. This was crucialsurvival podcast, and I'll speak

(11:10):
to you on the next one.