Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Fat Wood

LOL. It only weighs a few ounces, and it's become a bit of good luck charm.

Lighter'd is what the old folks used to call it around here. A contraction of lighter wood, I believe. You can have a lighter'd stump or a lighter'd knot. Or a board that is "pure lighter'd".

Mannlicher;
Top of the morning my friend, I hope you all aren't getting the frosty weather down there and that all in your life are well.

Thanks for that photo sir, my goodness that's interesting!

We get what we call "fat wood" in coniferous trees that have had some damage to them, for instance if it's been torqued in a heavy wind or snow load.

Even then, it's usually Doug Fir that gives us anything resembling the sap saturation that your entire stump has and to be clear it'll only be a very small portion of the tree. It's usually in the first say 6' up too, though very occasionally higher up, but it's smaller seams of pitch filled fiber then.

It's rare enough up here that when I get enough to make gifts to people it's a much appreciated one.

Like my friend to the west Kolofardos, I always carry some fat wood in my pack, along with another half dozen ways to start a fire.

When I'm teaching the Survival and First Aid night during the annual Hunter Safety class each spring at the gun club, I tell the students that they'll find me from a satellite thermal image because I intend to have that big a fire burning!

Thanks again and all the best.

Dwayne

I wouldn't worry about using it....been using it to start fires in my wood stove for over 50 years...from late to November until April usually my stove never needs any to get the fire burning good...
Always clean the pipe out ever spring ready for the next fall....be lucky to get 1/4 of a coffee can of creosote out of a 24' pipe every spring....

I probably leave a hefty truck load of fat wood in the bush every year, my friend cuts it into strips about 5" long and puts them into a small box with a label, and sells it for extra $$$ to campers etc....

We call it gnarly wood at our Mt Adams elk camp. Good stuff!

Dwayne,

Interesting that you feel it’s fairly rare in your locale. Due south of you in Eastern Washington is full of fatwoood stumps. I can usually find a nice stump within about 10 minutes of looking. Sections of forest that have old logging or thinning activity are gold mines

Well, good luck is important.

I have piles of fat lighter chunks, and a few piles of lighter stumps from when I cleared some food plots. We burn lighter in the fire pit unless I'm cooking steaks over the coals.

LAFFIN’……right, pull it up….with a D9…..
A club I was in down LA way had a lot of cutover from fresh to 20 years old. One spot had a log road with a 3 ft bank on one side. Was a rich pine stump a couple feet back from the edge looking like it would be an easy grab. Had a 87 Chevy short bed manual trans and some 12.50 x 33 murders on it. Hooked a chain up and eased forward and did an easy tighten up to 4 wheels spinning. Backed up and gave it a good jerk. Same result. Gave it a too hard jerk that shook the ground so I thought. Far as I could tell I didn’t even loosen the dirt around that stump. It’s probly still there if somebody didn’t burn it.

Fat lighter here in GA. The very best is from longleaf pines which are native to us here in SW GA.

A hundred years ago, houses were built using that source of lumber and siding. Years ago, our next door neighbor knocked over his kerosene heater , igniting his longleaf pine constructed house. I was a volunteer firefighter back then and watched the entire house burn slap down to the foundation in 10 minutes. He lost everything. He ran out in his underwear and that was all he had left to his name. I ran to my house, got him a sweatshirt and sweatpants, socks and tennis shoes so he wouldn’t have at stand there looking embarrassed. Once a house like that gets going, it’s hell to get it put out.

The southern version of pine kindlin is usually yellow pine, knotty pine some call it. Used to see older homes with knotty pine dens and walls and such. That and some log home builders make round logs from it. Else wise it’s fit only for drippin sap all over and dropping tons of small cones and dead limbs. If you can find a big one 12” or more diameter that has died standing and is starting to lose bark and rotten wood off the trunk you’ll most likely have enough fire starter to last a long time.

The limbs that have gone rich and fallen are called pine knots. Like the one kept in the feller’s backpack. The longer ones torch knots, having somewhat of a handle away from the trunk running to a fat base where they joined the trunk. But the area starting 6 or 8 feet above the ground and down is the treasure. And the stump below ground is at least as rich. Problem is recovering it.

Paper companies in the south harvest Loblolly stumps in reclaimed cutover for turpentine production if rich stumps are there in sufficient number. They don’t seem as rich as yellow pine but way rich enough. I’ve seen open 18 wheeler trailers full to the top with them. But they have the heavy equipment to do the harvest.

Prowlin the woods up on the Blue Ridge now and white pine is the only pine from around 2500’ up. Quite a few knots from dead pines and blow downs but the trunks and stumps aren’t nearly as rich as flatland southern breeds. But here there are a multitude of low pine limbs in thicker stands that have died and remain attached to the tree. All the solid ones will have some rich wood toward the center. Great kindlin. But nothing beats those old yellow pine.

We have a "Pine Torch Church" historical site here in the Bankhead NF. Supposedly, all these dirt-poor folks had to light nighttime services were long Fatwood splinters. The church still stands with holders for the torches all along the walls.

Not something you’ll often, if ever, find around here! memtb

Here in Mississippi, it’s called “lighter knots” or fat wood. Smells like turpentine products and very useful for starting fire. One lighter knot will do the work of many small sticks of kindling. A local Boy Scout Pack would hit our deer camp property to search for the lighter knot stumps. They would harvest it, use honeysuckle vine or raffia as a tie for bundles to sale as a fundraiser for their gear. The Scouts liked nothing better than attack tree stumps using a hatchet. Wear your old duds tho, the rosin makes a sticky mess. A cheap fundraiser project. Free for the taking and the boundless energy of 10 year olds using sharp objects to destroy stuff. Good training for future Marines. They used to make dynamite from the stumps too.

My folks always said " rich pine" or " magic pine"

Same here. Must be a Mississippi thing. That's where our hunting camp is. Bogue Chitto.


Clyde

I lit the wood stove this morning with some fat lighter, a piece the size of a pencil. Dehydrated gasoline.

"Lighter Pine" here.

I had some acreage cleared up by track-hoe and dozer a few years ago and the operators were pretty impressed by how quickly the huge debris piles (each the size of city bus) burned up. Turns out they had scooped up all my lighter pine stumps I'd been collecting when they were pushing stumps and trees for the brush piles. Big lighter pine stumps and diesel will indeed burn up slash piles quick.

What I saw when I woke this AM...