Camping outdoor is fun when you can build your own fireplace however in Taiwan most camp sites do not allow this and all National Parks are prohibited from making a fire. Creating a fireplace do give some senses of outdoor comfort, security and light. When there is no ready available light source, human tends to gather around a fireplace. That makes wild camping fun.
There are few rules and tricks I would implored when making a fire. Normally I will make a fire pit or create a fire pit wall, this will prevent the fire from spreading to the surrounding and also assist to make the fire burn better.
These are few things I would carried out when making a fire
- Gather wood of different sizes and sort them out
- Clear all dried leave or grass around the fire pit
- Dig a hole so that you can cover it with soil when it is over. This is a LNT (Leave No Trace) method.
- or create a fire pit wall, this method is the best. It makes the fire burns better and let other campers to reuse the same pit instead of burning elsewhere and everywhere. Best done at river camping so when the tides comes, it will wash off the ashes
- Never use wet rocks to make the wall, the wet rock will explode and hurt someone.
- If all burning is not possible, buy the kind of BBQ set on the pics below. One of the best portable BBQ set design
teaching my kids how to start a fire, kids simply love fire
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| Digging Pit method |
collecting different kinds of wood sizes and sorted out.
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| burning long wood at mid section to break into small pieces |
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| using fire wall pit method creates an updraft burning, air is suck through the holes between the rocks |
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| once fire dies down, good amber is formed for BBQ |
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| fire burns well with fire wall pit |
This was in 2003 Taman Negara, Malaysia. We had used rocks to make our fire pit, however we forgot to clear the dried leaves around it and it did burn up...lesson learnt !! nothing serious happened as we were partying around the fire.
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| Hayou River Hot Spring Camping photo by 0027 |
This is another great gear to contain the fire if ground fire is not allowed on camp sites. Snow Peak has a similar product but expensive, I got this off from made in China. It is actually a BBQ set that can be used as a fireplace and burns really well.
if you want a better off the ground fire, get this Coleman BBQ set which is heavier and bulky but burns pretty well too.
My best lightweight fire starting tool also used in hobby craft. No commercial tinder is required when starting fire with this turbo lighter. Collect some small wood and start the fire with it. It will be a challenge :)
The roof....the roof is on FIRE, we don't need no water let the MTF burn!! Enjoy
