Fire
Our topic for today will continue with more wilderness survival. Of all the items that you will need to
survive in a wilderness or zombie apocalypse situation fire is going to be one
of the most important. Without fire you can’t cook, sterilize, purify, heat, or
create light. Now most people think that just having a lighter or matches will
be enough for your survival. This is far from the truth as circumstances can
change rapidly in a survival situation. For instance you could lose your
matches or your lighter, you could get your matches wet, or the lighter might
run out for any number of reasons. So what do you do for fire? There is no
simple answer. One option is to rub sticks together so that the heat created
from the friction creates a small ember that you will move to a tinder bundle.
This is known as the fire by friction hand drill method.
A few important notes
about this… You will have to create the hearth board, the drill or spindle, and
you need an ember pad to catch the ember as well as having a kindling bundle ready
for the ember. As you look at your woods to make the spindle and the hearth board
one expert recommends less dense woods work better for creating friction
according to his research. He also went on to test the difference between the
living wood and dead wood spindles concluding that dead wood is better. 
For the hearth board locate a dead branch about
1 to 2 inches in diameter of dead soft wood and whittle it flat like the
picture. Now place the spindle on the hearth board at around the middle and
mark around the spindle. This will be the spot that you notch for the spindle
to rest in and create the ember. Once you have marked the area notch it out.
Now that you have your notch you can do the initial burn in. This is simply a
quick run of the spindle in the notch to smooth it out and get it ready to make
fire. Now that you have your burn in complete it’s time to make the V shaped
notch going from the edge of the hearth board back to the spindle notch. There
you have it my friend one hearth board.
Now you need to get the ember pad. This
is just a smooth then flat surface to be place under the hearth board at the V
notch to catch the ember that is created and then transfer it to the tinder
bundle.
On to the tinder bundle. This should be made of dry and fine fiber material and shaped like a birds nest. I have also seen long grass bent back on
itself to make a u shape used. Once the ember was placed on the bundle it was
covered and blown into or fanned. Now that we have all of the pieces that you
need on to the fire making.
Find a dry flat area clear away any debris that
might be in your way and place the ember pad on the ground. Now place the
hearth board over the ember pad. Now you need to decide if you want to kneel or
sit as you begin to work on the fire. Sitting you will lose downward pressure
but you will be more comfortable. Kneeling you will get more downward pressure
and the ember will be created faster. Either way place a knee or foot on the
hearth board to hold it in place. As you Place the spindle in the spindle notch
of the hearth board begin rolling the spindle between the palms of your hand to
just before the fingers with downward pressure making a U shaped motion as you
work. Once you see smoke and a small orange glow you have it. Place the spindle
on the ground, remove the hearth board, and pick up the ember pad very
carefully. Move the ember to the tinder bundle and blow gently to ignite the
bundle. As soon as your tinder bundle is
lit move it to a pre-made fire pit and kindling and stoke until you have fire of your required size. Now enjoy the fruits of your labor.
It should be mentioned at this point that this is only one of many options for creating fire. You could also create fire with friction bow, plow, or strap methods as well as with a soda can polished to a highly reflective surface or with a lens or battery and steel wool or with a car battery. these methods may be featured in future articles.
I truly hope that this has been
informative and helpful for you. It has been an amazing fun project for us to
work and learn from as we move toward being better able to thrive in any
situation life throws our way. As always if you like this share it. Follow
us on face book at www.facebook.com/FIA-page or on our blog page at fiablognews.blogspot.com
No comments:
Post a Comment