Firecraft is a perishable skill as I have learned. It is also a skill that cannot be mastered by completing a task once or twice. Making fire in actual rain is much different than using wet wood after a rain. If anyone thinks they are in good shape because they can throw a log in the creek and make a fire out of it they are mistaken although that’s not an easy task either. I am no master and only have 3 fires in the rain with no shelter, cover, or man made tinder but this one was my best I think. The prep was lacking but it got going and each attempt leaves me with more knowledge. Tools used were a firesteel, folding saw and a 4 inch knife, no man made tinder splitwood only.
To prove it was raining:
Here is my chosen tree, a hedge, dead and off the ground:
My prep, it was just enough but I should have had much much more. I also skipped a whole size of prep from what I normally do for some unknown reason:
Prep was protected from the falling rain by Hickory bark while I worked although looking back I needed more bark since you can see much of the the prep is soaked. I was however very protective of the scrapings and shavings so they were able to dry out the larger fuel:
We have fire!
Making the reward:
Today I felt good about how I did, I got the fire going first try and it never went out. I still need a lot more practice though. My prep like I said was adequate but would not have left any room for failure so next time I need much more along with another piece of Hickory bark for cover. Oh, and making fire in the cold rain while soaking wet makes things much more difficult, this is NOT like making a fire in normal conditions. I actually think this is why I skimped on prep and didn’t bother to find more bark. Go out there and try it, you won’t be disappointed with the skills you build!
This is how I should have done it, enough prep for 3 whole fires but laziness is apparently magnified in cold rain.
I have never gotten the burning desire to go out in the rain and start a fire, but I have used flint and steel (old style) with good success.
I am planning on picking up a couple of these fairly soon - I’ll definitely take them out for testing in wet conditions to see what they can take:http://www.wildersol.com/
I haven’t had a chance to make the char cloth yet so I haven’t used it. I would comment on the quality of it but I don’t really have much to compare it to. I can say that the screw off tip is nice and the vacuum created by compressing the piston followed by screwing the tip back on leads me to think that it should work well. It also has a small storage space in the cap.
Char cloth is really easy to make. I take a small round tin with a lid, poke a hole in the top, and throw it in a fire. Just after a little smoke starts to come out of the hole in the top of the can, I pull the can out of the fire to cool, and then take out the char cloth.
Supposedly, the idea behind the fire piston is that you don’t need the char cloth, but leaves, and small combustible items…
There is no reason a fire piston should not work in wet conditions.
For char cloth I use 2 layers of tin foil with a hole poked in the top and bottom. Throw it off to the side of the fire for 10-15 minutes, time depends on how hot the fire is. Tin foil will melt so keep it on the side of the fire. Altoids make good containers as well. Most of my char cloth is made on the grill if you can believe it, just do it way from the house or your wife will complain about the smell LOL.
I tried it on the stove in an altoids tin. Big mistake. My wife came home 5 hours later after plenty of airing out and thought something was on fire. She has a bit of a heightened sense of smell right now, which is also my fault.
I think I packed the tin too full so I’m getting uneven charring at best. I should try the grill next.
I tried it in a large, flat tin where the top snapped over the bottom but when it heated up the lid came loose and warped. This opened the tin and the whole batch was ruined.
I graduated to an old tin that originally held 500 airgun pellets. The top threads onto the bottom.
Pack it with cotton cloth and put it near enough to the coals so it smokes profusely. It doesn’t take long to make enough char cloth to last a quite a while.
I need to bump this experiment up the priority list. I started young with flint and steel and different kinds of tinder, but this seems altogether different. Should be interesting at least.
Nice post. We have the problem of nearly constant rain/dampness in our area, so getting a fire going without using a bunch of manmade tinder is a challenge. I’ve always been lazy and just brought along vaseline soaked cotton balls for tinder (or use Neosporin soaked cotton balls: works just as well for fire, and then you can dual-purpose it if you need the Neo!). But I like the idea of improving my “bushcraft” and starting without any cheater tinder, as you did.
Elk hunting in the northern Rockies for years taught me a lot about building fires in snow, sleet and rain. What I found worked best for fire-starter are the pressed wood looking waterproof fire starters commonly found in packages of 8-10 in Walmart, etc. They always light easily, wet or dry, and are inexpensive and lightweight.
I use strike-anywhere kitchen matches stored in waterproof old med bottles. I also carry a small candle, just in case.
Clear a dry space on the ground. Find a dead tree and use underside bark for the floor of the fire. Cut or break off lots of dead branches from dead standing timber. Break two fire-starter sticks in half, place on dry bark floor, stack dead branches on top, smallest first, and light. Use more bark (or whatever is available) for a rain cover over the fire if necessary. Once you get a good fire going, with larger and larger branches, the rain cover probably won’t be needed.
For cutting branches off dead timber I like a small folding saw (Gerber).
Flint & steel, etc., is a lot more difficult to use successfuly in bad weather than what I use. But YMMV!
