Gas blew up in my face today

[17 Oaks]

The "Fatwood" (or "fat liter") that I know is all natural and nothing more than a super concentration of sap in a pine stump. It's the best natural fire starter there is. A handful or two of splinters and a handheld propane torch can get anything going. Matches will work too but can take longer to really get it going, plus I like the extra reach of the torch. I keep plenty of it around, using the easy to split stuff in the fire place, and for grilling, and the chunks that can't be split easily are used in brush piles. Mess with enough of it and you'll know the smell of the good stuff, and handling the really good stuff will be like getting glue on your hands. I think the best of it comes from trees that have died on the stump, but even stumps from harvested trees can have some fatwood in them. It will take a few years for it to really turn after dieing or harvest, and it lasts forever.

You will appreciate this:

There I was for a week long field problem in SE Ga with a Ranger outfit, doing some training. Well by Tues nite it started to rain with the semi cold front that came thru...but stopped an it rained all night and all wed and all nite and thurs. Thrus is our last nite out and by then we are frozen even though its prob in the hight 50's, but rain never stopped and went from a shower to a downpour.

We finish probelm early in the night around 2 am and OIC who by now is miserable even. He says case of beer when we get back to anyone who can get a fire started that we can make some coffee and get warm. Lots of tries but no cigar, finally he says guess its cold C's and water and no one gets the case of beer. I said I will call on that case of beer Capt. He says ok Lt, everyone else has tried if you think you can, do IT. I said I will and within 30 min or less we are going to be drinking hot coffee so get that pot out from the cache what was left for us. And I need 3 helpers. We are set up by a creek and I tell them to get down in the creek in the water and stomp around until you feel a pice of wood crack under your boot, pick it up, bring it to me while I gather some wood for the fire.

In short our here they come with these sticks of wood and suddenly I have a crowd and someone says. How the **** are you gonna start a fire with wood from a creek...WATCH ME! I pull out the fixed blade IO carried and start cutting on that wood and its exactly what I thought I would find in SE Georgia, Pine and any Pine laying in a creek that cracks is full of resin and it will burn like gasoline. I build my pyramid with those pine stick, open one up with my knife an set my Bic lose on it and I have flame in 30 sec, put in the middle and I am hearing HOLY CHIT, where did you learn that.

And that my friends is Georgia Fatwood...**** near burn under water.

 

[Ken45101]

Never use gasoline to start a fire!

Gasoline does not burn, the FUMES burn and gas is very volatile. IIRC, the explosive limites of gasoline fumes are from 5% to 95%.

Much, much safer are diesel, heating oil, engine oil, etc.

 

[scdeerslayer]

You will appreciate this:

There I was for a week long field problem in SE Ga with a Ranger outfit, doing some training. Well by Tues nite it started to rain with the semi cold front that came thru...but stopped an it rained all night and all wed and all nite and thurs. Thrus is our last nite out and by then we are frozen even though its prob in the hight 50's, but rain never stopped and went from a shower to a downpour.

We finish probelm early in the night around 2 am and OIC who by now is miserable even. He says case of beer when we get back to anyone who can get a fire started that we can make some coffee and get warm. Lots of tries but no cigar, finally he says guess its cold C's and water and no one gets the case of beer. I said I will call on that case of beer Capt. He says ok Lt, everyone else has tried if you think you can, do IT. I said I will and within 30 min or less we are going to be drinking hot coffee so get that pot out from the cache what was left for us. And I need 3 helpers. We are set up by a creek and I tell them to get down in the creek in the water and stomp around until you feel a pice of wood crack under your boot, pick it up, bring it to me while I gather some wood for the fire.

In short our here they come with these sticks of wood and suddenly I have a crowd and someone says. How the **** are you gonna start a fire with wood from a creek...WATCH ME! I pull out the fixed blade IO carried and start cutting on that wood and its exactly what I thought I would find in SE Georgia, Pine and any Pine laying in a creek that cracks is full of resin and it will burn like gasoline. I build my pyramid with those pine stick, open one up with my knife an set my Bic lose on it and I have flame in 30 sec, put in the middle and I am hearing HOLY CHIT, where did you learn that.

And that my friends is Georgia Fatwood...**** near burn under water.

Never thought to find it like that, there's not much wood in the creeks around here, not pine anyway.

When I was in boy scouts, at the week-long summer camp they had a parents' night, and part of the activities that evening was a relay race, involving a lot of activities that a scouts do: canoeing, running, swimming, knot tying, and the last station before a short run to the flag pole was fire building. After the first year we knew how to win the race the next year. There were two strings, probably at about 12" and 18". When the runner got there the two boys there (me and one other one) had to put the wood under the strings, start the fire, burn through both strings, and put the fire out. We dropped a pile of fatwood shavings made with a wood planer and built a teepee with fatwood splinters around that. Stuck the lit match in there and just watched. Just about the time it caught up really good the strings were gone, then we had to put it out. You had two gallon cans, one with water and on with sand, after that we still had a bit of stomping to do to get it out. We were probably 4th or 5th getting to the fire building, but we won the race by a huge margin. After getting to the flag pole to seal our victory we walked back to watch the others try to get there strings burned. We were accused of using all sorts of accelerants on that wood.