I readied a fire a couple of days ago in my fire pit. I was going to take some pictures but never got around to it. At any rate it was a top down fire, smaller starting wood on top, big stuff on the bottom. The idea came from a @91bravo thread. Since I'd never done one I thought I would give it a try. Well I came home after dark Friday night and the neighbors invited us over to their patio for the rest of the evening. I just carried my firepit over with the prepared wood ready to go. I lit the top of the fire with my a few pieces of newspaper. In 15 minutes we had a fantastic fire. It burned so nicely as it fell down onto ever large wood. They wouldn't quit talking about it. At any rate, we will do it again some time and I will take some pics for you. Great idea Jonny.
It's not my idea, I'm sure this method has been around for a LONG long time. I actually first learned of this method from @JV3. I've heard it called the top down fire, upside down fire and the pyramid fire. Basically a light it and forget it type fire. Once the bottom logs catch, then you just feed it some logs to keep it going.
@91bravo -- I didn't think you invented it. But I was crediting your post where you mentioned it for giving me the idea. It sure worked really well.
Yeah, we have built top down fires since we learned of them. It's neat to watch it literally burn down to the ground!
I never know what wood to use. Some people make friction fire look easy. Haven't seen Jclmd, but that guy made friction fires with just about everything!
Jclmd is a fire god. Red cedar is what i started with. Great tree. Bark is my go to tinder bundle and now i find that it works well for fire board and spindle!
Went to full fire last night on bow drill. First attempt and got a coal. Blew it into flame with some jute twine and cedar shavings from making the fireboard. Cooked dinner over it. I win.
I don't know if your tree's are the same as here but we are not that far from each other. I have found as strigidae said red cedar also poplar and maple work well around here. I notice he makes his ember shoot wider than I do, going to open it up some next time and see if it works better for me. This one worked great and the spindle and board are maple.
I've been far too long without a campfire. The forge is nice, but there's nothing like the peace of the woods and a good blaze to cook some kielbasa over!
Nice We built a big two man drill camping last year, everything was very wet wood wise, lots of smoke but never got an ember.
We got invited to the neighbor's house yesterday to enjoy the crisp evening on the patio with a fire going. He asked me to bring my fire pit over to have two pits going for the evening. So I thought I would just have some fun and build a traditional fire, small stuff on the bottom, and a top down fire, small stuff on the top. TOP DOWN BOTTOM UP The wood I was using was wetter than I realized, we had a lot of rain a few days ago. So my top down fire struggled to dry it as it burned. You can see the water sweating out of it in this picture. Eventually it took and burned down nicely.
