One should never take one of the well designed Napoleon Fireplaces for granted. It has taken centuries of lighting fires to perfect the modern fireplace. Just like what you may read in a novel of ancient times, lighting a fire was not as easy as one two three. Way back in the day it was all about ones talents with flint and steel. A quick sharp crash of flint and steel would hopefully spark up and flash a fire onto some flammable substance. Some people would say that making fire happen the old way is not that easy.

It can be hard to find the right flammable substance. There isn’t a cheroot laying around just anywhere. Even finding dry grass, moss or wood can be hard to light. When I think of flammable dry wood or grass is the first thing I would think of besides maybe paper. But if your out on a hike or camping you don’t always have the New York Times in your pack ready to light up. Although that might be on my packing list now. But that  is with the flint and steel approach. Now that we have matches to light these dry substances became easier to burn.

Another primitive way of starting a fire is with charred cloth. But that is a homemade sort of thing. I don’t know about you but I don’t have the time to cook cloth long enough to get all the color out. If you ever decide to  go old school better find a good recipe for charring cloth. If you char the cloth correctly then a spark from your flint and steel should hit the fabric and make a read spot. The red spot will grow into a glowing ring which would be impossible to blow out. If you have it in the wind be careful it will make it work even better. Anyway, my vote is a new fireplace or stove.

Primitive Fire is a post from: Kiss Java

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