The “star fire” consists of logs placed like the spokes of a wheel.
If you want to keep a fire flaming during the night for light or to warm you, use the star fire with one long log
reaching to your hand, so that you can push it in from time to time to the centre without trouble of getting up to stoke the fire.
To keep your fire smouldering overnight, cover it over with a heap of ashes. It will then be ready for early use in the morning, when you can easily blow it into a glow.
Here is a way they use in North America for making a fire for heating your tent:
Drive two stout stakes into the ground about four feet apart, both leaning a bit backwards. Cut down a young tree with a trunk some six inches thick; chop it into four-foot lengths. Lay three or more logs, one on top of another, leaning against the upright stakes. This “reflector” forms the back of your fireplace. Two short logs are then laid as fire-dogs, with a log across them as front
bar of the fire. Inside this “grate” you build a pyramid-shaped fire, which then gives out great heat. The “grate” must, of course, be built so that it faces the wind.
Putting Out the Fire
A Scout is very careful about fires. When he uses one he sees that it is well out before he leaves the place. The fire should be doused with water and earth,
and stamped down well, so that there is not a spark left that might later start a fire. Finally the original turf— which was
put on one side before you made the fire—is put back so that hardly a trace is left.
Tongs are useful about a camp fire. They can be made from
a rod of beech or other tough wood, about four feet long and one inch thick. Shave it away in the middle to about half its
The “reflector fire” is used in North America for heating your tent, especially when you go camping in the winter time.
proper thickness; put this part into the hot embers of the fire for a few moments, and bend the stick over till the two ends come together. Then flatten away the inside edges of the ends so that they have a better grip—and there are your tongs.
Notch the middle of the stick before bending it into fire tongs.
Making Fire without Matches
What would you do if you needed a fire and had no matches?
A Zulu boy’s way of getting over the difficulty is to find a piece of hard stick and drill a hole with it in a piece of soft wood. By twirling it rapidly between his hands he manages to make embers which then set light to dry grass or the lining of the bark of trees, and from this he makes his fire.
It is a long way from South Africa to Australia—across thousands of miles of ocean. Yet, when you get to Australia, you find that the natives there had many of the same customs and many of the same dodges that were practised by the savages of South Africa.
The Zulu boys light a fire by twirling a stick in softer wood.
The Red Indians of North America also have their method of fire-lighting, which is very much used by the Boy Scouts there.
In this case, the boy takes the spindle of hard wood and holding it upright with one hand, the palm of which is protected by a wood or stone hand piece, he twists it rapidly round by means of a bow whose string is twisted round the spindle.
The point of the spindle then works its way into a board of soft wood, which the boy holds in place with his foot.
The Borneo natives make fire by sawing a log with a whippy cane.
The Red Indian and Scout method of fire-lighting uses bow and drill.
A little slit at the side of the board leads to the hole made by the spindle, and the hot ember which comes away from the wood falls into this small opening and sets fire to the tinder which the boy has placed under it.
So a fellow who has once learnt this way of making fire, and knows which kind of wood to use (for not all kinds are suitable), can go out into the backwoods, without having to carry a match-box with him and can keep himself warm or cook his grub at any time he would wish by lighting his fire in the backwoods way.
Drying Clothes
You sometimes get wet in camp, and you will see tenderfoots remaining in their wet clothes until they get dry again. No old Scout would do so, as that is the way to catch cold.
When you are wet, take the first opportunity of getting your wet clothes off and drying them, even though you may not have other clothes to put on, as happened to me many a time. I have sat naked under a waggon while my one suit of clothes was drying over a fire.
