Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Backpack Hunting Fatwood???

Are you guys using the fatwood for the first match, ala VCBs?

Or are you using several sticks to get a fire going to add 'regular' firewood to?

ironbender;
Hopefully this finds you and yours well sir.

If I'm carrying fatwood in my pack, then I might use it a bit differently depending upon the situation, but here's what I do a couple times a day with the fatwood shown in the photo when lighting the wood stove.

I'll take 4 chunks of spruce from the wood box which is typically split down to 1" - 1�" square by 12"-14". I start by laying the first two down in the ashes of the wood stove parallel to each other about 2" - 3" apart and then put the next two across the first two about the same distance apart, the result looking more or less like this " # ish "

Then I'll grab a couple chunks of fatwood and snap one in half.

The result of breaking one in half results in a bunch of fine slivers which when a Redbird Strike Anywhere Match is held to it bursts into flame.

That half chunk of fatwood is dropped into the middle of the # spruce chunks and the other half of the chunk of fatwood added for good measure.

I'll then wander out to the outside wood pile, pick up a chunk of Doug Fir or larch (thanks to Dan I'm using proper terminology now! ) and take drop it onto the now brightly burning spruce.

Hopefully that made sense ironbender?

As I've mentioned in previous fatwood posts, if lighting it with a match or flame, then I find breaking a thin chunk in half burns best.

If using a ferro rod, then I'll fuzz a bunch up on the piece of fatwood itself, spark the pile of fatwood fuzz and then ignite that with another piece of broken fatwood.

Hopefully that answered your question sir and all the best to you and yours in this new year.

Dwayne

The best fat wood in the US comes from N FL ,S GA , it is in the form of stumps of native yellow or long leaf pine from sand land, Ive seen 18' long stumps , Chemical company's used to harvest them from old growth or native stands by the ton, used to make dynamite and gunpowder from them. You can take a little splinter and set the world on fire. very best

ironbender,

It depends on fuel conditions. I generally carry cotton pads that have a smear of Vaseline, or Tinder-quick fire tabs for my tinder source. If wood is dry and plentiful, the fatwood stays in my bag. If it is a little damp but still fairly good fuel conditions, I'll use a couple match stick size pieces of fatwood.
If conditions are really bad or it is an "Oh [bleep]" fire as in Oh [bleep] I need a fire and I need it now, I might use a bundle of fatwood along with several Tinder-quick's or cotton pads.

Ed T;
Thanks for the post, in particular making the distinction of just what kind of fire is being called for.

When we're teaching the Survival/First Aid night in the provincial Hunter Safety course we try our best to encourage the students to both take more courses and practice with the gear they carry.

As instructors we know it's impossible to teach subjects as broad as First Aid or Survival adequately in a couple hours.

Personally I'm not a big proponent of pre-packed First Aid kits for that reason as most folks won't tend to pull them out until they need them and there are better times to learn what you know and what's in your kit than when your arm is doing an imitation of a lawn sprinkler.

Fire starting methods - so we try to teach anyway Ed - need to be second nature as if you take a big dip in the creek when you weren't meaning to - well that would call for a "OH Bleep" fire for sure.

Thanks for adding your thoughts here Ed, I always appreciate your input.

All the best to you in 2014 sir.

Regards,
Dwayne

PS;
A couple years back I tried submersing some of my fire starting kit to simulate the need for such a fire. Ironbenders VCB and fatwood both work dandy after playing submarine for a couple minutes with only a good shaking off.

Happy 2014 to you as well Dwayne,

I couple years ago, a week before one of my skills camps, I had taken a piece of fatwood, submerged it in the creek and weighted it down with a rock. When it came time to play with fire, I took it out, shook it off, sliced a few slivers off and, of course when touched to the flame of a tinder ball, the fatwood burst into flame. It is some darn good stuff to have along.

Thanks for the replies fellas. I got it now.

I'm going to assume this was a Douggie... That and a few Larches was all that was growing here. I'm guessing this stump was at least 50 years old too.

There really wasn't enough left to perform an autopsy.


After digging around down into the taproot, maybe 4-6" below the soil level around the rotten treasure, I got into something solid. I smacked the spike poking up with the poll of my axe, and lookie what I found.


After I excavated all of it, and sliced all the junk off, that's how much fatwood was in what was left of a tree that went 24" on the butt end.


I've got it split up and drying out right now.

Dan, that red rot stump in your photo is the kind of source for my fatwood. You can get fatwood out of many such rotten snags with only your hands if it still has some fatwood spears sticking up into the red rot above ground. Kick it apart to find out and find them.

I look for a naturally dead tree, not a cut stump but a standing dead snag that is mostly red rot that will crumble. Kick the standing snag and crumble the red rot off of the hard spears that emerge, whether they fall down or remain standing and you have to break them off. As you found, there is usually good fatwood in the root portion, probably even more than above ground but the root portion likely requires tools to retrieve.

If the deadfall tree is still lying beside the snag stump, it may have accessible fatwood slivers/spears in the rotten lower end.

EdT and BC30Cal have also posted some excellent info on this thread. I liked Ed's description of different fire building scenarios determining how much fatwood one uses. In recent weeks I have used none when starting fires in the Rockies and a lot when starting a fire in coastal forest. Ditto to fir being our best source, but I usually get mine on Dwayne's side of the mountain!


Best of the New Year to all. Just returned from a couple of weeks absence.

Okanagan;
Happy New Year to you sir! I trust this finds you and yours well.

Remember when I was trying to entice you over for another coffee on the deck and I sweetened the deal with fatwood for you?

One of those boxes could have your name on it Okanagan....

All the best to you and yours again and in all seriousness hopefully we can get together again sometime in 2014.

Dwayne

You can find huge chunks (30-50lb) of fatwood lying on the ground in the southeast. The rest of the pine log has long since rotted away, as termites here will quickly consume the rest. A lightning-killed tree seems to have a lot as well.

Dan, how do you like that GB Outdoor Axe? I got my paw on one of those last week for the first time at a store.

Looks like you are from Oregon. I think your best source would be standing dead snags from waist high to head high composed of mostly red rot. Surprisingly rotten snags and deadfalls will often have spears of fatwood hidden in the soft rotten crumble. I'd guess that they will be common in forest areas between I-5 and the Cascade crest, but there will probably be plenty of them on the east slope of the Cascades and also in the Blues. Along the coast fatwood is scarcer. My guess as to why is that the trees rot in the wet conditions before the slow seep of resin into the butt section has time to occur.

Hey Dwayne, your cherry connection made me a hero last summer. Thank you again. People were talking about it over Christmas.