State Park Camping

Is there any tricks in getting a campfire started? When I first started camping many moons ago, I used wadded up newspaper (and lots of it) to get my campfire started and then I made sure it never went out until I was ready to leave. Since those first years of camping and asking a few questions to other campers, I have found a sure fire way (no pun intended) of getting a campfire started with little effort. Depending on how much time you want to put into it, there are a couple of choices you can make. By searching the internet, you can find makers of fire sticks and fire starters. I am not going to list any since there are quite a few. Some of these fire starters if you buy them in bulk, are actually quite cheap and the shelf life on them are great, so you don’t have to worry about using them all up in the same year. I bought a fifty box bulk of fire starters a couple of years ago and still have ten left to use up this year. These fire starters were bought off the Internet from supercedar fire starters. Here is their web site address: http://www.supercedar.com How quickly you go through depends greatly on how much you camp and how much you use them. For me, since these fire starters come in 6″ round by 2″ thick patties, I break them into quarters and only use a quarter at a time. These fire starters are so effective in getting a fire started, I found that a quarter of this 6″round fire starter was all I needed.

Now the other way is a bit more work and can be a family project during the winter months when you are not camping. You need to get yourself block of wax, (I get my wax from the discount candle shop. Their web site is: www.discountcandle.com.) An old 1 or 2 quart pan, saw dust or shavings, small 6 oz paper cups, wax paper or an old cup cake pan. CAUTION: This can make a mess and you will be mixing HOT WAX. Take your paper cups and set them up 6 to 8 in a row setting them on either the wax paper or the old cupcake pan. Add your saw dust or saw shavings to the cups and fill them about half way. After you have heated the wax on the stove in your old quart pan, slowly pour the wax into each cup and fill just enough to cover the saw dust or shavings. After a few pours, the wax will cool and start to get hard, so just put the pan back on the stove and re heat the wax. After all your cups have been filled with wax, set and let cool for about 1 hour. Now you have yourself homemade fire starters at the fraction of the cost of buying them.

Anyone else have any tricks they would like to share?