How do you light your bonfires?

[phiferpharm]

This is the only good use for ethanol gas.

When I lived in Miami, I heard a whoosh, then a thump, then my neighbor cussing. The first sound was the gas going off he used to start his brick BBQ pit, the thump was the limb that blew off above said BBQ grill, the cussing was the neighbor surveying his wrecked BBQ pit and our wrecked shared chain-link fence...

 

[Redneck in training]

I know you are joking but (don't ask how I know) using gas is not a great idea to start a brush pile fire.

Way too combustable for me.

MoKelly

Second that. Did that only once. It went something like that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GA0wUW_p5Ns

 

[KiotiKowboy]

Sometimes idiot should be spelled in capital letters.

 

[Grateful11]

I like this idiot even better than the other guy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3f4lPzxSm5A

 

[Redneck in training]

When I was in military guys used to light coal stove with Semtex. It burns quite hot.

 

[Tractor Seabee]

When we burn here everything is wet wet wet. Propane weed burner at the base of the pile always works. Once a good blaze gets going it is amazing how fast it dries out. I always get a good "Fire Storm" going, sometimes 50-60 feet high flames. This is a once a year event so the pile really gets big; as high as my BX can get it pushed up.

Ron

 

[Deere Dude]

I always have a 5 gallon bucket od wood chips (little split construction wood) soaked in straight diesel. I start all my fires using a piece of newspaper and a handful of diesel soaked chips. Starts my fireplace , cookout and bonfires very fast, easy, clean and cheap/

 

[KiotiKowboy]

I just have to ask. Is using diesel soaked chips in your fireplace a really good idea?

 

[Deere Dude]

I just have to ask. Is using diesel soaked chips in your fireplace a really good idea?

It worked perfect on my new fireplaces for 25 years. No flare up like gas will give you, clean on the hands except maybe a little diesel film which wipes right off. I used some old diesel mixed with dirty oil from a brake cleaning job, but that was to dirty. I threw that away into a burning barrel. Generally I have a full bucket of chips and then go and pour about 2 gallons of diesel over them to try to get all of them covered. Most of the oil drips off anyway except for a light film. That is what I use.

What I started doing yesterday to refine the process is to take 1 sheet of newspaper and lay it out flat in the fireplace. Then a medium sized handful of chips from my bucket in the center. Add about 4 sticks of wood about the size of your forearm on the top of that, then light the edge of the paper. The flame will crawl to the soaked chips and then start the bigger logs fairly quick.

From cold to nice flame in 3 minutes. The bucket says on the front porch all winter and I use about 4 buckets of construction chips per winter.

 

[Mace Canute]

Back when I was a kid on the farm we had a field of flax and after harvesting it we had no use for the flax straw so as usual we pushed it up into large piles with the Farmhand loader. This is a pic of the type we had.

As you can see, the reach is there and the stepdad decided to make one humongous pile! It was bloody huge! Later when we got a skiff of snow it was my job to go set fire to the flax straw piles so I took the old Allis Chalmers WC and a small can of 20% gas mixed with 80% diesel fuel out to the field. I stopped about fifty feet from that big pile on the upwind side (or I should say up breeze side) and went and used a small splash of fuel just to ensure a good catch and lite the match. That pile went up in flame so fast I had to run back to the tractor and it was a good thing I left it idling because the heat built so fast. I headed away at full throttle, all of 9 mph, and when I got a decent distance away I looked back at the biggest fire I have ever seen until I saw a grain elevator on fire. That huge pile was never repeated. The heat from the fire sterilized a spot of ground directly under the middle of the pile and it took a couple of years before anything grew there again. Flax straw burns fast and it burns hot!