Any wet firewood tricks?

tomman58 wrote:
Good grief, none of you were in the boy scouts????? I remember for the one level they gave me two matches and had to make a fire and cook .................. there was 15" of snow on the ground!
No problem other then finding dead wood, that done all that was needed was a knife and a hatchet. All the wood was frozen and wet! The key to making it very easy was finding some Birch bark (almost considered cheating). Birch bark burns very hot even wet.
Get a boy scout handbook an learn about camping!

I see you're from Michigan. Out here in the Pacific Northwet (intentional spelling) coastal region things are a bit different during the winter. You can ask Lewis and Clark about that. It is friggin' damp.

Having made that point, during the damp season I keep my kindling in the RV. I also empty the paper shredder and take the contents in a paper bag. It makes a pretty fast big flame to start things off. corrugated cardboard boxes used to haul stuff get re-purposed as fire starting material too. I tend to not use liquid fuels. Preparation of the fire before starting will get you where you need to be usually (and earlier post was quite good regarding that).

Regarding dealing with wet wood, the people that suggested splitting are right on. Generally if you open it up you can get to the dry core. I have my firewood in pretty large pieces and split it (as I use it) before putting it on the fire anyway. That helps keep it from getting soaked through. It often gets damp while being transported, even if under a tarp.

One shouldn't be putting 6 inch diameter logs on a fire unless feeding a raging inferno for a big group. Smaller pieces of wood work much better. I see lots of folks putting big lumps of wood on and then fighting to keep the the fire going as it peters out (how my brother does it).