wet firewood sold by vendors
This happens too often. The campground store sells firewood that is too green to burn. Why do we put up with it? Not like it's cheap either; usually their firewood is ridiculously expensive. Last t...
Forum Discussion
I see lots of info in the thread on how to not use wet wood, so here is a little input on how to have a fire with it.
Having been raised and spent many weekends in my teens camping on the North Coast of BC (100inchs of rain a year") you learn how to have a fire with wet wood or stay cold and wet.
Split all the wet wood rounds into at least 6 pieces. You want the wood smaller rather than bigger.
Start with as much dry small stuff as you can get. Get a small hot fire going with this and build up a good bed of coals. Nowadays a fire log is a good way to get it going and saves time.
Once you have a good small fire going use the log cabin method to add fire wood on top/around your fire. Think walls with floors every seocnd layer. The trick it to keep space between each piece/layer of wood. Once this wood starts burning, keep the pile of wood on top the fire as big as is practical. This help preheat/dry the wood at the top so as it works its way down to the flames/bottom it is heated and dryer and will burn better.
This also helps reduce smoke but smokie fires with wet wood is just the way it is. I have never heard of the OSB squares on top of the fire to reduce smoke. I will have to try that one out.
Hope this helps a little.
Edit/side note: The other thing we learn young is how to string up big blue tarps to stay dry and withstand wind. I always have at least three tarps and a few hundred feet of halilbut line or 5/16 line to tie them up with. Have one tarp just for stringing up high over a fire so you can stand around in the rain and keep dry. Thats camping on the North Coast :)
Having been raised and spent many weekends in my teens camping on the North Coast of BC (100inchs of rain a year") you learn how to have a fire with wet wood or stay cold and wet.
Split all the wet wood rounds into at least 6 pieces. You want the wood smaller rather than bigger.
Start with as much dry small stuff as you can get. Get a small hot fire going with this and build up a good bed of coals. Nowadays a fire log is a good way to get it going and saves time.
Once you have a good small fire going use the log cabin method to add fire wood on top/around your fire. Think walls with floors every seocnd layer. The trick it to keep space between each piece/layer of wood. Once this wood starts burning, keep the pile of wood on top the fire as big as is practical. This help preheat/dry the wood at the top so as it works its way down to the flames/bottom it is heated and dryer and will burn better.
This also helps reduce smoke but smokie fires with wet wood is just the way it is. I have never heard of the OSB squares on top of the fire to reduce smoke. I will have to try that one out.
Hope this helps a little.
Edit/side note: The other thing we learn young is how to string up big blue tarps to stay dry and withstand wind. I always have at least three tarps and a few hundred feet of halilbut line or 5/16 line to tie them up with. Have one tarp just for stringing up high over a fire so you can stand around in the rain and keep dry. Thats camping on the North Coast :)
