Fire: 10,000 B.C. Style

Fire, a necessity in any survival situation it provides warmth, the ability to cook food, purify water and aid in being noticed by rescuers.  Today we take fire for granted with our propane lighters and matches.  It is easy to start a fire, just a click of a button and voila...instantaneous flame.  Our prehistoric ancestors would think of us as supreme deities if they saw the tools we use to produce the magic fire.  Their only tools being archaic as they were; sticks, stones and cordage, they also were able to harness the energies of fire.  So, what happens when you are out on a three day hike and you loose your pack or lighter?  Or, here's a senerio.

While on a canoe ride you hit some rapids and turned over.  After surfacing and uprighting the canoe.  You realize your pack is nowhere to be found.  You travel several miles down river in hopes of finding it attached to a tree hanging over the water but, to no avail it can't be found.  The sun is beginning to set and you're still wet from the earlier swim.  You need to get dry or hypothermia is eminent.  What do you do?

I'm considered odd by my friends and family because these are the sort of things I think about.  I mentally play out scenarios in my head that could possibly happen one day while out in the wilderness, where I tend to spend as much time as possible.  So, what do you do?  You need a fire, first and foremost.  You have to get dry and the sun setting is going to do nothing to help the hypothermia.  But, how do you make fire with only what you have in your pockets?  Well, that's what I have spent the past couple of days learning to do.

I went through my gear and determined what I'd have on my person and came up with just a few items.  I always carry my SOG SEAL Pup knife on my calf.  It's a great fixed blade knife that has taken tons of abuse from whittling to splitting branches while making shelters.  I also carry a Swiss Victorinox Camper pocket knife, a canteen with cup, compass, lip balm, & notebook all in a belt case on an military belt.  I also have about 50' of 550 paracord that I've fashioned into an anklet I wear.  Backpacker.com has a great article on how to make your own.  These are my essentials, I don't go into the woods without them and I don't usually remove them from my person.  So, with that said how do I start a fire?

What I've come up with is a bow drill.  This tool is easy to make and with a little practice easy to use.  There are some "rules" to follow before going out and making this.

1. The material you use is important and will determine the difficulty in creating fire.
2. The time spent creating the tools will aide in the ease of their use.
3. There is a technique to using a bow drill so go slow at first before really going hard into generating heat.
4. Lubrication will make or break ya!!!

Before I begin, please make sure you have fire wood, kindling and a tinder bundle already gathered.  With that said I like to use a medium hard wood like cottonwood, sassafras, sycamore, poplar, willow, aspen cedar, or tamarack.  You can use a thumbnail test to help in choosing the wood by simply depressing your thumbnail into the wood.  If it's soft and easy to press, the wood is too soft.  If it is a struggle to make a mark, it's too hard.  If it you can make an impression on the wood without cutting into the wood, it's just right.  I make most everything all out of the same wood to make things easy, making them out of different woods could cause something to just burn out before actually making fire.

You'll need to make a spindle, fire board, hand plate and bow to make this all work.  The spindle can be carved from a branch and will resemble a dowel rod, the rounder the better.  This will go in between the fire board and the hand plate.  The fire board should be about a foot long and twice the width of your spindle.  The hand plate, I usually make a little bigger than the size of my palm to avoid contact with the spindle.  The bow can be any 2' long curved branch that is solid and won't break while using.  You will also need a bit of cordage for the bowstring, this can be a shoelace, paracord or you can create your own cordage from nature but that takes a bit of time to do.

I start with the fire board by taking a 2" thick branch and flattening down two sides like a board.  This way I have an even surface on the ground and for my spindle.  I cut a dimple into one side of the board about a 1/2" from an edge for my spindle to sit in.

The hand plate comes next and much like the fire board gets a dimple in the center of a 3/4" to 1 1/4" thick piece of wood that will fit comfortably in my hand and carve a flat side that the dimple will be carved in, this will be the socket.

The final piece is the spindle, this should be about 1/2" in diameter and 8" in length in the shape of a cylinder.  You will want to taper the ends.

Once everything is made you need to lubricate the socket.  This will allow the spindle to spin freely and reduce any friction between the two pieces of wood.  You can use natural body oils, such as the oil produced on the side of your nose, animal fat, pine pitch or slime molds.  Please do not use water or sweat, it will absorb into the wood and cause it to swell and make the task near impossible.

With everything created we need to drill the sockets which means will also allow you to become accustomed to the movements necessary to create fire.  You'll want to put everything together as such:

You wanna keep things loose at first till you get a pretty good socket burned into each piece of wood.  Burning the sockets is just what it means you burn the sockets through friction causing them to deepen.  After the socket are created you'll want to carve a notch from the outside of the fire board into the socket for the burnt wood to collect.  I place a piece of bark under the fire board to collect the ash and embers and make things easier to move from the fire board area to the kindling.  

Once again assume the position and get ready to rumble.  Start sawing the bow back and forth nice and smooth and get into a good rhythm slowly building speed and pressure on the spindle till you see smoke coming from the fire board.  Once this happens begin applying more pressure and speed but, stay in control of the bow.  You'll start getting a good amount of smoke, at which point 10 or so saw strokes later you should see smoke continue from the pile of burnt wood.  Quickly and carefully place the smoking burnt wood powder into the center of the tinder bundle and cup it in your hands gently.  Begin blowing a steady gentle stream of air into the bundle causing an ember to glow.  From here you need to coax the bundle to ignite through blowing into it, once it ignites place it into a kindling tipi (built before any construction of the bow drill) and coax the bundle to ignite your kindling...Voila...fire, 10,000 B.C. style.  

There are a number of YouTube videos showing the demonstration of this technique.  You can search for Cody Lundin or Bear Grylls and bow drills.  

The first time I did this I felt like I just conquered an enormous obstacle.  It was truly a great feeling.  It also will allow you to dry your clothes from the earlier swim and keep from suffering hypothermia overnight.  Fire is an major convenience we take for granted but, without it feel helpless.  Knowing how to create a fire using minimal tools and nature is a great confidence booster when going outdoors.