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How to get your fire burning

How to start a fire

If you enjoy the challenge and ceremony of building and lighting a fire, then a traditional wood fire pit would definitely be the best choice for you.

Getting your fire burning is easy enough. All you need to start your fire is air, tinder, kindling wood, logs of wood and some fire starters.

Begin with placing tinder in a small pile at the bottom of the fire pit. Place a couple of firelighters on top of the tinder. Add a layer of kindling (some people like to form kindling into a teepee-like structure over the tinder pile).

Then light it up! Once the kindling is burning, start adding the logs of wood one at a time, with the necessary spacing and gaps which allows for proper airflow between the logs. 

If your logs of wood do not adequately light and begin to burn, add more tinder and kindling as needed. To keep your fire burning add logs when the fire begins to die down. Be careful when adding logs as logs in the fire can shift, embers and other burning debris can also be thrown outside the fire pit.

Now sit back and enjoy. There’s something incredibly relaxing and mesmerising about watching a fire burning in a fire pit.

What is Tinder?
Tinder is an easily lit and quick-burning fuel source that gets your kindling and then your logs burning. Tinder can be anything from newspaper to pine needles, tree bark and leaves etc., as long as it is dry so that it can burn.  

What is Kindling?
Kindling is the sticks and twigs that will burn longer than the tinder, and long enough to get your logs going.

It's really easy to make your own fire starters with common household items...

Dryer Lint & Egg Cartons
Place a wad of dryer lint in each empty storage department of a cardboard egg carton with melted wax or paraffin wax poured over the top. Wax and paraffin wax is highly flammable so don’t just throw a cube of it in a pot and heat it up. The safest way to melt it is by having a double burner ie: having the pot with the wax in it above another pot of water. The simmering water will melt the wax at a slower, safer rate. Melted wax is messy to clean up so it's a good idea to use an old can instead of a cooking pot to melt the wax in, so you don't ruin a good pot. You can even melt down any half-burned candles you have in your house. Sawdust, shredded paper and cut-up pieces of egg carton top can be used as a filler. You can also dip some pine cones or rolled up newspaper tied with string into the wax to make fire starters (but don’t use nylon string).

Charcoal in an Egg Carton
Place a chunk of charcoal in each section of cardboard egg carton and then light the carton. You can squeeze some hand sanitizer or bug repellent on it before lighting to help get it going.

Cotton Balls & Petroleum Jelly
Cotton balls & Petroleum Jelly make great firelighters. They're lightweight and when petroleum jelly is highly flammable when it's worked into the ball. You can even dip them in paraffin wax or melted petroleum jelly and store them in a Ziploc bag. You can even try using cotton ear bud tips and lip balm together.

Wax Paper & Dyer lint
Wax paper burns brilliantly on its own; but you can also wrap some dryer lint or sawdust on the paper, and twist both ends of the paper to hold the contents.
Hand Sanitizer
Squeeze a good amount of hand sanitizer on the wood. Make sure the hand sanitizer contains alcohol as this is what makes it burn.
Duct Tape
Duct Tape is highly flammable and burns for a while. Spray the tape with bug repellent or squeeze some hand sanitizer on it to get your fire burning.
Once you have the fire burning you'll want to sit around and enjoy your favourite snack. Try using some of your chips to get the fire burning, the greasier the better. When your fire is burning, it's snack time!

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