Interesting note about a top down fire

cmonSTART said:

So, I'm home sick from work today and have nothing better to do. I don't build top down fires often, so I figured I would live a little. I'm in the habit of using strips of birch bark for tinder with my kindling if I'm starting cold. Well, my set up was nice. John Gulland would be proud, but under the newspaper knots there were strips of birch bark, as I normally use. Well, birch bark curls when it burns, so the nice stable newspaper knots resting on to of them went rolling and falling everywhere. Oh well. I let them burn out and added some more knots and all was OK.

Moral of the story, use the birch bark for traditional fires.

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swestall said:

I tried the top down fire start after watching the video: that thing really worked. At first my wife said, "what are you doing!" I told her and as she rolled her eyes, I lit it off.
Within a short time flames were all over and burning down to the bigger splits.
She conceded and we were both amazed that we'd not heard of this before.
Since then, I haven't lit a fire, we've just been using the coals every day to reload.
Our new Mansfield will be an opportunity to give it a shot again, and that's how we're going to lite off the break in fire.
More Friday.........

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brooktrout said:

swestall said:

I tried the top down fire start after watching the video: that thing really worked. At first my wife said, "what are you doing!" I told her and as she rolled her eyes, I lit it off.
Within a short time flames were all over and burning down to the bigger splits.
She conceded and we were both amazed that we'd not heard of this before.
Since then, I haven't lit a fire, we've just been using the coals every day to reload.
Our new Mansfield will be an opportunity to give it a shot again, and that's how we're going to lite off the break in fire.
More Friday.........

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Where do we find this video? Thanks.

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swestall said:

I tried the top down fire start after watching the video: that thing really worked. At first my wife said, "what are you doing!" I told her and as she rolled her eyes, I lit it off.
Within a short time flames were all over and burning down to the bigger splits.
She conceded and we were both amazed that we'd not heard of this before.
Since then, I haven't lit a fire, we've just been using the coals every day to reload.
Our new Mansfield will be an opportunity to give it a shot again, and that's how we're going to lite off the break in fire.
More Friday.........

Click to expand...

downeast said:

It's the "old dog new tricks" thing guys. After 30+ years lighting fires, I tried the "top down" method last night.
It works. Repeat: it works. For a top loader it's easy: no matches repeatedly dropped into no where trying to get that bottom paper
going.
Whoever thought it up deserves a micro brew, maybe even a single malt ( Then again, I do not share my Laphroaig. ) Thanks.

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