In many places a bonfire is a large and controlled outdoor fire, used either for informal disposal of burnable waste material or as part of a celebration. Bonfire can be done as an adventure’s activity for travelers to gather at night and enjoy their picnic. Also, it can be settled purposely for warmth, entertainment, or as a signal.
1. Create Your Fire Bed
As you don’t want to be that guy who starts a environmental destruction in a national park. So always think about safety first, if you are in a site where fire areas are prior designed there is no much to worry. But if your site has got none then you should consider this, select a site away from bushes, trees, and other rugged area that is not suitable for fire.
The next thing is to your fire bed should be on bare earth, not grass (especially dead grass). You can make fire bed by digging and raking away plant materials(mostly dry ones), then gather around for dirt and woods
2. Time to Gather Your Wood for Your Bonfire
You’ll need three basics types of materials to build your roaring campfire: tinder, kindling, and fuel wood.
Tinder. Every good campfire starts with good tinder. Tinder catches fire easily, but burns fast. Material like dry leaves, dry bark, wood shavings, dry grass, and some fluffy fungi make for good tinder.
Kindling. You’ll need something with more substance to keep your flame going. You can’t move directly to big logs. You’ll just smother your little flame. That’s where kindling comes in, Kindling usually consists of small twigs and branches. Go for something that’s about the width of a pencil. Like tinder, kindling needs to be dry or else it won’t burn as easily.
Fuel wood. This is what keeps your fire hot and burning. So, it doesn’t have to look like the huge logs due to if you go too big, it’s going to take a long time for the wood to catch fire. Look for branches that are about as wide as your wrist or your forearm.
3. Lay Your Fire
There are several ways to lay your fire, but you can use these steps below:-
- Stick a long piece of kindling into the ground at about a 30-degree angle. The end of the stick should be pointing into the wind.
- Place a tinder bundle underneath the support stick.
- Put some small pieces of kindling around your tinder nest.
- Lay small pieces of kindling against the piece stuck in the ground. Add another layer with larger pieces of kindling.
- Light the tinder, and watch it burn.
4. Putting Out Your Fire
After you’re done with your fire, you need to put it out thoroughly. The following guidelines will kill your fire good and dead.
Start early. Putting out a fire completely takes longer than you think. Plan when you’re going to bed or leaving and start putting out your fire about 20 minutes before then.
Stir. As you sprinkle water over the embers, stir them with a stick or shovel. This ensures that all the ashes get wet. When you don’t see any steam and don’t hear any hissing noises, you know you’re getting close to a completely extinguished fire.
Touch test. Don’t actually run your hands through the ashes. You don’t want to brand yourself with a searing ember. Put the back of your hand near the ashes. If you still feel heat, it’s too hot to leave. Keep adding water and stirring. As soon as it feels cool, you’re good to go.
Dispose the ashes. You don’t want to leave the next camper a fire bed full of old ashes. Also, if you had to create your own fire bed, you want to leave the land in the same condition as how you found it. Scoop up the ashes in a bag and spread them out around the campsite.
Patch up your ground. If you made your own fire bed, replace the dirt and sod you dug up.