Tinder and Kindling

Tinder and Kindling are the things you use to start a fire. Tinder would be something you brought with you or small twigs the size of pencil led.  Kindling would be something like dry stick the thickness of your thumb.  The logs would be no bigger than your wrist or would be the size you can break with your hands.

Somethings that you might bring with you might be fatwood, cotton balls or wetfire.  Fatwood comes from pine stumps and contains a lot of resin. Wetfire is a small block of chemical tinder that will burn even if it is floating in water.

This is char cloth.  We mentioned it when we talked about Fire Pistons. It is a very old tinder material. It is made by baking cotton cloth in a way that air cannot get to it. What is left behind is mostly carbon and will work as tinder. Native Americans made char cloth using oyster shells to bake it in. Char cloth works great, but its tricky to make and it must be kept dry.

 This is a magnesium block.  Magnesium is a soft metal that you can shave with a knife. The shavings burn very hot and can be lit with a spark.  This one has a fire steel right on the side.  No matter how wet this gets, it will still work.

There are dozens of store bought or homemade kinds of tinder that you can use. Waxed cotton, frayed twine, dryer lint, birthday candles, and chapstick are examples of things you can bring.

If you are for some reason you are Not Prepared, you can make a feather stick.  This is an effective tinder material

If you are lucky, you might find on old birds nest.  These are great tinder. Birch bark is also great tinder, but you should only use birch bark in an emergency because it is not good for the tree

 

Here is a handout all about how to build a campfire

Fire Craft

There are a lot of reasons you may want or need to build a camp fire. The most obvious is warmth. A campfire will keep you warm through a chilly night. Another reason is to purify water.  The most reliable way to make questionable water safe to drink is by boiling. After clean water, hot food is also often better than cold food. Camp fires are a place where scouts can relax after a day camping or hiking.  

There are a lot of ways to start a camp fire. The oldest way to create a spark is with a flint and steel.  This was basically an actual piece of flint and an iron striker. This was how Native Americans built fires.

The flint and steel was improved upon by creating rods of a special mixture of metals that would easily spark when scraped. This is the kind of fire steel that we use.  They can be in the form of a simple rod and striker or they can be a little more complicated like a blast match or a sparky. No matter what kind of fire steel you have, this is the most reliable way to build a fire.

These things are called Fire Pistons, they start a small ember using compression.  They do work, but you have to use char cloth to start the ember and they are tricky. Fire Pistons are also expensive. Unlike a fire steel, these won't work if they got wet.

Other less reliable ways to start your fire would be a magnifying glass. You can only concentrate sunlight if its sunny out.

Matches and lighters are great fire starters too, provided you can keep them dry.  You can start a fire by "rubbing sticks together", heat is created by friction.  Native Americans used a bow drill to generate the heat to make a fire, other native peoples used friction troughs.

Here is a link to the top 10 fire starter handout from out meeting 

Patrol Schedule

Starting this fall our meetings will be held at the Boy Scout Cabin from about 7:00 until about 8:15. I will be there at 6:45 to open the door.

All Meetings will be in Class B with just a couple noted exceptions

The Webelos II Patrol is hosting a Webelos Campout at the Scout Cabin Nov. 6-8.  This event will cover the Camper Pin, the Webelos Walkabout Pin and the First Responder Pin.

We will be hosting the Pinewood Derby Cut Out Night on December 2.  

Pastor Jude will guide us through the Duty to God pin on Dec. 9.  This is a Class A event. 

We will have earned our Webelos Badge on January 6th. 

We are going to earn at least one STEM Award after that.

Everything that follow the February 3rd meeting will work toward the Arrow of Light.

During one of our meetings we will be hosting a flag retirement.  This will also be a Class A event as will be Building a Better World and Looking Back, Looking Forward.

This is our agenda for the rest of the scouting year.  There may be changes along the way, but this will keep us on track.