To Build a Fire

Fire is surprisingly fragile, which is what I learned one recent morning when I spent half an hour, a long match, two short matches, the stove burner, a candle, and the morning newspaper starting one in the fireplace.

It was below freezing outside and not much warmer inside and, entranced by the idea of pioneer living, I decided to make a fire. Husband, the former Scoutmaster, has it down to a fine art and has shown me how to do it several times so I thought it would be a cinch.

The minute you read those words, you know there's going to be trouble.

I emptied the kindling box and set up a little stack of twigs, then braved the cold outdoors to grab three smaller and one larger log from one of our wood racks. Inside, I placed them appropriately around the firehole, stuck a piece of crumpled newspaper in the middle, and extracted a long match from the box.

The match wouldn't strike so I took it over to the kitchen and lit it from a stove burner, but it went out on my return journey to the fireplace. After due consideration, I took a candle down from the cupboard and, after spilling several drops of wax on the stove top and kitchen floor and nearly burning my thumbs off, got enough drip from the candle to secure it into the holder. Then I lit it from the stove burner and, moving slowly, my eye constantly on the wavering flame, I made it across the room with fire intact.

Why didn't I carry the candle over to the fireplace and light it there with a short match? I don't know. It didn't dawn on me till hours later.

I lit the remaining stem of the original long match from the candle, but it went out the second I thrust it into the fireplace so I tried a blazing twist of newspaper, which stayed lit, but none of the wood caught from it. I tried again, stuffing more shredded newspaper into the breach. Then I wound individual sections of the paper into tight rolls for substance and tore another section into strips to keep the fire going until the wood caught.

Suddenly I realized the room was filling with smoke so the last section of the paper went into making a torch to thrust up the chimney to inspire a proper draft.

Half an hour later the fire was still burning, and I was so proud!