Fire Building

 

 

 

Search  Inquiry Net

Back ] Home ] Up ] Next ]

Activities
Archery
Axe, Boy Scout
Axe, Saw, Forestry
Axe, Saw,  Knife
Axe Use: Beard
Axe Use: Seton
Axe Use: Traditional
Axe Throwing
Beds, Woodcraft
Bedding Materials
Bicycle Maintenance
Birch-Bark Torch
Birds
Bird Houses
Blocks Tackles Purchase
Blood Red Cross
Broom: Camp or Witch's
Buttons
Campcraft
Camp Hygiene
Camp Planning
Campfire Programs
Catapult
Chainsaws
Checklists
Chuck Box Riddance!
City-Craft
Compass Bear Song
Compass, Home-Made
Cooking
Cotton Kills Bear Song
Deduction in Tracking
Deduction & Detective
Drum
Dyes
Edible Plants
Equipment, Leader
Equipment, Personal
Equipment Maintenance
Equipment, Lightweight
Equip, Pickle Bucket Camp
Estimation
Field Signals
Fire-Building
Fire Building
Fire Laying
Fire Lighting
Fire Starters
Fire: Rubbing-Stick
Fire Types, Wood Types
Fire Council Ring
Fires: Woodcraft
First Aid
First Class Journey
Flint & Steel
Flowers
Forest
Gesture Signals
Ground to Air Signals
Handicraft Stunts
High Adventure
Hiking
Hike Planning
Indian Sundial Clock
Insect Collecting
Insect Preserve
Indian Well
Knife & Hatchet
Knots, Bends, Hitches
Knots: Diamond Hitch
Knots: Lashings
Knots: Rope Work
Knots: Seton
Knots: Traditional
Knots & Whipping
Lashings
Lashing Practice Box
Lace or Thong
Learn by Doing
Leave No Trace
Leave No Trace
Lights
Local Knowledge
Log Ladders, Notched
Log-Rolling
Logs: Cut Notch
Logs Split with Axe
Loom and Grass Mats
Lost in the Woods
Manners
Maps
Map & Compass
Maps: Without Compass
Measurement
Measurement Estimation
Menu Worksheet
Menu (Adult IOLS)
Mosquitoes
Mushrooms
Night Tracking
Observation
Old Trails
Paints
Pioneering, Basic
Pioneering Models
Plaster Casts
Preparations
Proverbs
Rake
Rope Care
Rope Making
Rope Spinning
Scout Reports
Signal & Sign
Sign Language
Silent Scout Signals
Smoke Prints
Snakes
Spanish Windlass
Spoons
Staff/Stave Making
Stalking Skills
Stalking & Observation
Stars
Stools
Story Telling
Stoves & Lanterns
Summoning Help
Sun Dial: Scientific
Survival Kit
Tarp Poles
Teepee (4 Pole)
Tent Care
Tent Pitching
Tom-Tom
Tomahawk Throwing
Tomahawk Targets
Totem Making
Totem Animals
Totem Poles
Training in Tracking
Tracks, Ground, Weather
Tracking & Trailing
Trail Following
Trail Signs & Blazes
Trail Signs of Direction
Trail Signs: Traditional
Trail Signs for Help
Trees of the NE
Wall Hangings
Watch Compass
Weather Wisdom
Wild Things

Scout Books

Site Contents

To build a fire you need some light, dry wood, which you can split up with your pocket-knife into match sticks about the size of a lead pencil. When these small sticks begin to blaze, other sticks a little larger in size may be added, and this continued until the fire is as large as you wish to make it. But a bed of hot coals is the best of all fires for the cook. If a narrow trench be dug in the ground, and a fire started in it and constantly fed with small sticks until the trench is filled with glowing coals, you will have an ideal cooking fire. 

tbp107.gif (2992 bytes)
Figs. 107-109.
Evolution of an Oven 

Fig. 107 shows a stone camp bake-oven. It may be built of bricks, stones, or sods, or it may be dug in the side of a bank. It is only necessary that it shall have an opening for the smoke, so that there will be a draught. Fig. 108 shows the oven plastered over with wet mud or clay. Fig. 109 shows a finished oven in the form of a rounded mound of earth. To bake in this oven, build a roaring fire in it, and keep it going until it is thoroughly heated upon the inside.   

Find a stone or a piece of wood with which to stop up the front opening, and another smaller piece with which to close up the chimney hole. With a stick draw all the embers from the oven, leaving no hot coals or ashes inside, then quickly place your dough, or whatever food you wish to bake, inside the heated oven. Close up the front of the oven and the chimney hole, and with some damp tie mud or clay plaster up all the cracks around the door and chimney cover, so that no heat may escape; then go away and leave the oven alone for several hours. When you come back and open it you will find your food beautifully baked. 

tbp110.gif (3037 bytes)
Fig. 110.

The ordinary camp-fire is shown in Figs. 110 and 111. 

tbp111.gif (10742 bytes)
Figs. 111 & 116.
Camp Pothooks, Camp Cranes, and Camp Fireplaces 

People who are accustomed to an open cook-fire generally have two green logs laid side by side, about seven inches apart at one end and three inches apart at the other end, with the tops of the logs flattened so the kettles and pans may rest securely on them. A forked stake is driven in the ground at each end of the space between the logs, and a Strong pole is laid across the forks. From this pole hang the pots and kettles (Figs. 112, 113, 114, and 115). 

tbp112.gif (4367 bytes)
Figs. 112-115.

Take a green stick (Fig. 112), Cut off all but one branch (Fig. 113), cut a notch in the other end (A A, Fig. 114), and it is a serviceable pothook (Fig. 115). 

The broad space between the logs (Figs. 110 and 116) is used for the large kettles, while the smaller space is used for the coffee-pot and small utensils. The logs should be five of six feet long if there is much to be cooked, but for less cooking they may be shorter. A good fire can be kept burning between these two large logs with little trouble, and a moderate fire will last for some time with but little attention. The pots or kettles hang from the cross-pole by pothooks suspended a few inches above the large logs. 

Any one of these fireplaces or ovens may be made in a vacant lot or a back yard, as well as in the real wilderness, and by their aid potatoes may be baked, green corn roasted, popcorn popped, meat cooked, and bread or biscuits baked.

If You Want to Make Biscuits 

take some dry salt, one heaping teaspoonful of baking powder, and two and one-half teacupfuls of flour, and mix it all together while it is dry. While one of you stirs the Hour around with a clean wooden paddle, let the other slowly pour in enough water to make a soft dough. Now put some flour on your hands, and without wasting any time make the dough into small balls somewhat smaller than base-balls, sprinkle them over with dry flour, flatten them a little, and place them in the oven to bake. 

Flap Jacks 

Take four cupfuls of flour, one-half teaspoonful of salt, and one heaping teaspoonful of baking powder; mix them together and add cold water until you have a thin paste or batter. The frying-pan should be hot, and greased by rubbing it over with a piece of fat bacon or a greased paper, and should be placed over the bed of hot coals. Then pour the batter in the frying-pan until it covers the bottom of the pan. As soon as little bubbles begin to form upon the surface, turn the cake over so that the other side will brown. If you can make flapjacks and biscuits you will soon become an accomplished camp cook. 

If Bread is to be Baked 

for hungry fishermen or hunters, there are Dutch ovens or bake-kettles, but where room is precious, and every pound of luggage must be carried on the backs of horses or mules or men, two tin pans that fit closely together are light and bake just as well as a Dutch oven; one tin should nest into the other when packed. 

Grease the tins and put the bread or "dough-god" in the smaller pan, cover it with the large one, and bury them in hot coals for about half an hour. On a real wilderness trip from which I have just returned we baked the bread in an open pan set on edge in front of the fire. On the camp-fire (Figs. 110, 111, and 116) you can cook almost any sort of a meal, but for a 

Long Island Clam Roast 

select a level piece of ground or a smooth, sandy spot, and on this make a hearth by paving a place with flat stones or bricks, or if you can find one large flat stone use that. Now hunt up an iron hoop such as is used on certain kinds of barrels and kegs, place the hoop on the hearth-stone, and inside the hoop put your hard-shelled clams. Set them with the part of the clam that opens pointing down, and put them close together so that they will fill up all the space inside the hoop. 

Over the tops of the clams spread paper, shavings, or a layer of small, dry twigs; set fire to this and cover the fire with sticks about the thickness of your finger or thumb; make a heap of this brush over the hearth and replenish the top wood once or twice to make sure that there will be plenty of hot ashes left when the fire dies down; it is not so much the hot flames as the hot ashes that cook the clams. 

When the clams open they are done. Have a pan of melted butter, some salt and pepper, then let each camper supply himself with a clean green twig whittled to a point at one end; with this as a fork he can spear the clam inside the shell, remove it, dip it in the hot butter, salt and pepper it, and eat it from the end of the stick! 

A Clambake 

is made by building the fire inside of a stone-lined pit or hole and keeping the fire going until the stones are all very, very hot. On the floor of the pit place the clams, with their "noses" down, as told in the clam roast; put a layer of sea-weed over the tops of the clams, and over this a layer of ears of sweet corn, with the fine inner husks left on; over this place another layer of sea-weed, then some new potatoes, then more sea-weed, and finally cover with a piece of an old sail; cover the sail with sand or earth and leave to steam about thirty minutes, or until it is done. 

Inland boys can use the green husk of the corn instead of the sea-weed, and may cook chicken, fish, or any sort of meat by wrapping it up in wet cheese-cloth and placing it on the hot stones; over this they can put a layer of potatoes covered with more green husks, over that another layer of green husks, then some green corn, and so on, until they have the pit filled up with all the food obtainable; cover this up and allow it to steam until the viands are cooked. If properly seasoned and properly cooked there can be no better dishes made. 

Roast corn by using long, pointed sticks for forks and toasting it over a hot bed of embers. 

An Indoor Camp-Fire 

Those who are fortunate enough to have a good open fireplace destitute of gas logs in their homes may use it for a camp-fire. The hearth should be covered with several inches of ashes before you attempt any camp-fire experiments; but when you have a foundation of hot ashes and live (wood) coals, any sort of camp cooking may be done indoors. 

I have cooked a pot of beans in my studio fireplace by placing the pot in the ashes, and with the fire-shovel heaping the hot cinders up until I made a mound of them, the center of which was occupied by the pot of beans (Fig. 117). This done, I went to bed, and in the morning there was as fine a pot of baked beans, steaming hot, as ever graced a dish of a camp epicure or made a hungry man glad.  

tbp117.gif (13098 bytes)
Fig. 117   

For this recipe, take a pint of beans; wash them; parboil until wrinkled skins split in cooling; drain; cover bottom of pot with sliced onion; put in half the beans, two pinches of salt, one of pepper, a layer of sliced onions, a piece of pork 4 x 4 inches; put in the remaining beans; spread a full teaspoon of molasses; add just enough warm water to cover the beans; cover pot with a piece of thin cloth; force down lid; place in hot embers as described, and as shown in Fig. 117.     

It is not generally known that 

Broiled Rabbit 

is far superior to rabbit stew. Cut off the legs of the animal and keep them for a stew; spread open the body between the ordinary kitchen broilers (some thin slices of bacon should be put in the broiler with the rabbit); place it over the hot coals in your open fireplace, and broil it first on one side and then on the other. When taken from the broiler, placed upon a hot dish, and buttered with some sweet butter, you will declare that there is no game animal which can excel an ordinary cottontail in aroma, flavor, and all that goes to make food tickle a hungry palate.

The Boy Pioneers

 

 

   

 

 


Additional Information:

Peer- Level Topic Links:
Activities ] Archery ] Axe, Boy Scout ] Axe, Saw, Forestry ] Axe, Saw,  Knife ] Axe Use: Beard ] Axe Use: Seton ] Axe Use: Traditional ] Axe Throwing ] Beds, Woodcraft ] Bedding Materials ] Bicycle Maintenance ] Birch-Bark Torch ] Birds ] Bird Houses ] Blocks Tackles Purchase ] Blood Red Cross ] Broom: Camp or Witch's ] Buttons ] Campcraft ] Camp Hygiene ] Camp Planning ] Campfire Programs ] Catapult ] Chainsaws ] Checklists ] Chuck Box Riddance! ] City-Craft ] Compass Bear Song ] Compass, Home-Made ] Cooking ] Cotton Kills Bear Song ] Deduction in Tracking ] Deduction & Detective ] Drum ] Dyes ] Edible Plants ] Equipment, Leader ] Equipment, Personal ] Equipment Maintenance ] Equipment, Lightweight ] Equip, Pickle Bucket Camp ] Estimation ] Field Signals ] Fire-Building ] [ Fire Building ] Fire Laying ] Fire Lighting ] Fire Starters ] Fire: Rubbing-Stick ] Fire Types, Wood Types ] Fire Council Ring ] Fires: Woodcraft ] First Aid ] First Class Journey ] Flint & Steel ] Flowers ] Forest ] Gesture Signals ] Ground to Air Signals ] Handicraft Stunts ] High Adventure ] Hiking ] Hike Planning ] Indian Sundial Clock ] Insect Collecting ] Insect Preserve ] Indian Well ] Knife & Hatchet ] Knots, Bends, Hitches ] Knots: Diamond Hitch ] Knots: Lashings ] Knots: Rope Work ] Knots: Seton ] Knots: Traditional ] Knots & Whipping ] Lashings ] Lashing Practice Box ] Lace or Thong ] Learn by Doing ] Leave No Trace ] Leave No Trace ] Lights ] Local Knowledge ] Log Ladders, Notched ] Log-Rolling ] Logs: Cut Notch ] Logs Split with Axe ] Loom and Grass Mats ] Lost in the Woods ] Manners ] Maps ] Map & Compass ] Maps: Without Compass ] Measurement ] Measurement Estimation ] Menu Worksheet ] Menu (Adult IOLS) ] Mosquitoes ] Mushrooms ] Night Tracking ] Observation ] Old Trails ] Paints ] Pioneering, Basic ] Pioneering Models ] Plaster Casts ] Preparations ] Proverbs ] Rake ] Rope Care ] Rope Making ] Rope Spinning ] Scout Reports ] Signal & Sign ] Sign Language ] Silent Scout Signals ] Smoke Prints ] Snakes ] Spanish Windlass ] Spoons ] Staff/Stave Making ] Stalking Skills ] Stalking & Observation ] Stars ] Stools ] Story Telling ] Stoves & Lanterns ] Summoning Help ] Sun Dial: Scientific ] Survival Kit ] Tarp Poles ] Teepee (4 Pole) ] Tent Care ] Tent Pitching ] Tom-Tom ] Tomahawk Throwing ] Tomahawk Targets ] Totem Making ] Totem Animals ] Totem Poles ] Training in Tracking ] Tracks, Ground, Weather ] Tracking & Trailing ] Trail Following ] Trail Signs & Blazes ] Trail Signs of Direction ] Trail Signs: Traditional ] Trail Signs for Help ] Trees of the NE ] Wall Hangings ] Watch Compass ] Weather Wisdom ] Wild Things ]

Parent- Level Topic Links:
Scuba ] Skills ] Games ] Shelter ] Fire ] Night ] B-P's Camping ] Hikes ] Indian ] Spring ] Summer ] Autumn ] Winter ]

The Inquiry Net Main Topic Links:
 [Outdoor Skills]  [Patrol Method [Old-School]  [Adults [Advancement]  [Ideals]  [Leadership]  [Uniforms]

Search This Site:

Search Amazon.Com:

When you place an order with Amazon.Com using the search box below, a small referral fee is returned to The Inquiry Net to help defer the expense of keeping us online.  Thank you for your consideration!

Search:

Keywords:

Amazon Logo

 

 

Scout Books Trading Post

Dead Bugs, Blow Guns, Sharp Knives, & Snakes:
What More Could A Boy Want?

Old School Scouting:
What to Do, and How to Do It!

To Email me, replace "(at)" below with "@"
Rick(at)Kudu.Net

If you have questions about one of my 2,000 pages here, you must send me the "URL" of the page!
This "URL" is sometimes called the "Address" and it is usually found in a little box near the top of your screen.  Most URLs start with the letters "http://"

The Kudu Net is a backup "mirror" of The Inquiry Net.  

©2003, 2011 The Inquiry Net, http://inquiry.net  In addition to any Copyright still held by the original authors, the Scans, Optical Character Recognition, extensive Editing,  and HTML Coding on this Website are the property of the Webmaster.   My work may be used by individuals for non-commercial, non-web-based activities, such as Scouting, research, teaching, and personal use so long as this copyright statement and a URL to my material is included in the text
The purpose of this Website is to provide access  to hard to find, out-of-print documents.  Much of the content has been edited to be of practical use in today's world and is not intended as historical preservation.   I will be happy to provide scans of specific short passages in the original documents for people involved in academic research.  

 

Last modified: October 15, 2016.