I've found it before on accident. And pitch balls on scarred trees. But how do you go out, and find some on purpose? What do you look for and where?

Mark

I look for large dead pines that are still standing or leaning. Cut the main part of the tree down leaving about three feet of the trunk standing. Then cut the rest of the trunk down flush with the ground and look at the last couple of feet. It should be loaded with pitch and easy to split.

Used some yesterday to start a fire in my neighbor's brand new chimenea.

Old burns with standing tree stumps, used to cut the stumps for the fatwood when I was young. IIRC, the stumps were about 8-10 years old.

Also look for trees that have been long dead. The fat wood is concentrated in the roots and heart wood. Much of the fat wood I gather is from trees that burned in the 1910 fires. Sometimes the entire tree appears rotted, but will have a core of fat wood.

Very interesting, but sounds like a lot of work for a fire starter, no?

fatwood

Nice link. Really not much work at all. I gather pieces as I hike along. I have several wash tubs full st my cabin. I just carry a few split sticks with me.

An alternative to fat wood that my dad used was to soak old dry pine pieces in kerosene/diesel for weeks in a closed 1 gal. syrup can. When you need to start a fire, pull out a stick and light it up.

Some of the places I shed hunt this time of year have pines like Ed describe. Around here, when I find it, it's in the stump/taproot areas in Ponderosa, or Bull pine. Don't waste your time digging around in Larch or Firs.

However... Pines that grow in the southern regions, like Radiatta, have a MUCH higher level of resin in them. There's a noticeable difference between what I can find, and the Tindersticks that a guy can get from Light My Fire.

Pinus radiata is from the Monteray Penn. in California. The Southern pines are longleaf, slash, loblolly, and several others. The classic turpentine/pine tar pine is longleaf. That is what made Georgia the English navy all their ship masts.

We used to pickup pine knots when we walked the woods. They are rich with sap also and don't rot for years. They were used to mark property corners before modern survey markers. The rotted stump core from an old cut stump is where you will find fat wood in the wild.

Dan;
I trust this finds you well on this last day of 2013 sir.

We're a bit west of you and it's a little drier here too. I was interested to read your comparison of the pines you mine for fat wood as my experience has been exactly the opposite unless I misread you.

Here in the Okanagan the fat wood we get from Doug firs or larch seems to have a much higher level of resin than the Ponderosas in our yard.

We've live on 6 acres of mainly Ponderosa that the pine beetles are busy killing, so I get some fat wood from those trees. That said, I've found the Doug firs from about 5000' level typically have more resin and/or usable fat wood and prefer it.

I actually prefer larch for firewood, but seem to get more fat wood out of the Doug firs around here, though I could only guess as to why that might be.

As we heat with wood I cut the fat wood out of the firewood when I'm splitting it for curing. Anyway, like Ed I've ended up with boxes of fat wood and use it every day in winter to start the morning fire.

All the best to you in 2014 Dan.

Regards,
Dwayne

This^

It can be a joy on your saw too....

Interesting how areas differ even as close as Dan and I are. In my area, the doug fir has the highest resin content, of course most of it has been dead for over 100 years. Also find a lot in white bark and limber pines.

Fat wood is what I get when I see my wife's magnificent boobies.

I'll admit... I'm not the best at IDing stumps, especially rotten ones. The fatwood I've pulled out of the stumps that I knew were Douggies was pretty weak.

Larch I know pretty well, and there's a few stumps I got my eye on. Larch pitch I get all I ever want at work. I keep in touch with the logyard guys. When we have larch that got logged in the winter, and we have a 10 hour larch peel scheduled at work, you can scrape all you want off of a lathe knife with a putty knife at break time. Also, if you're caught up, and you see a butt-log get peeled, you can hang out at the chipper and grab any of that out of the belt that you want.

But still, I like the mexican stuff that Light My Fire puts in a box the best. It works better than anything that grows this far north.

Dwayne,

Which species of Larch you have up there? Eastern or Western? I know there's a band of Tamarack that runs through that region up into AK. (I used to [bleep] a forester, she knew a lot about all varieties of wood)

Thank you one and all. I hope that everyone is enjoying a pleasant New Years Eve.

I too love Tamarack/Larch for fire wood.

Mark

It's the same as what's known as heart pine down here. The old growth pines were virtually all heart pine, the stuff that grows now is all sapwood, it doesn't get old enough to form any heart pine before they cut it. My house was built in the late 1800's and the framing is all heart pine, you can still smell it plain as day when you go in the attic. God forbid it ever catches on fire

We pick it up in the woods from old rotted pine stumps, the outer part will rot away leaving the lightered stump as we call it. Pull it out, take it home & chop it up for fire starter. It's a bear to chop, hard as woodpecker lips.

Dan;
Happy New Year to you Dan!

Well thanks to you sir I learned something already this year by reading this link and a couple others.

http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/hfd/pubs/docs/en/en38.pdf

We live and hunt primarily in the relatively small band of Western Larch that they say runs east of Okanagan Lake and up only into the Shuswap Lake country.

I must admit I used the term larch and tamarack interchangeably Dan, which I see was wrong...

We cut mostly blow down trees for firewood and as mentioned for most of the wood I prefer larch or Doug fir for "night wood" and just this year have been learning the joys of some spruce to get a quick bed of coals for the slower burning chunks of larch or Doug fir.

Some of the Doug fir are so full of pitch that they'll stall my saw - a 372XPG with 28" of bar sticking out the front - but yes some of them are pitchy to the point where I'll quit cutting a log and come back to it a couple years later.

Those logs sometimes will have pitch seems bigger than a 2"x 4" running for up to 6' in them. Admittedly though there are times when the pitch seem produces just crystallized pitch in the center with fatwood surrounding it.

The crystallized pitch will burn too, but isn't as handy to carry along in the pack and seems to ignite better with a flame and not with a spark from a ferro rod.

That's all I know this morning on that subject Dan - thanks again for making me dig a bit and learn something already in 2014!

All the best to you in 2014 Dan.

Regards,
Dwayne

Fellow 'Fire members and makers;
On the fatwood theme, I thought I'd snap a couple quick photos of some fatwood in process so to speak.

Here's a shot of how I do it nowadays - a tip of the hat here goes to Okanagan as he's showed me a better way to slice the fatwood chunks in a thread here.



The slightly wider x thinner pieces - 3/4" x 1/8" - that I now use are easier to break in half if starting with a flame and as well are easier to make "fatwood shavings" with if starting with a ferro rod.

This is a shot of the old method I was using which resulted in pieces that were more like 1/2" x 1/2". Still usable to be sure, but less handy for both breaking apart and making shavings for a ferro rod start.


It's a good time of year to split off fatwood and play with new techniques of fire starting I find. As an added bonus it makes the garage - and my good wife's car - smell like fatwood rather than meat since we cut meat in there too.

Anyway, hopefully that was some use to somebody out there this first morning of 2014. All the best to you all this year.

Regards,
Dwayne

That settles it. I'm going to tear up rotten stumps with an axe tomorrow.


Larch is an interesting wood to me. It's not really a softwood, and it's not really a hardwood. To give you an idea of it's density, compared to Doug Fir, a 1/10" thick 4x8 sheet of larch weighs the same as a 1/7" thick piece of fir. That's with 2-8% moisture left in the veneer.

and I didn't even know there was an Alpine Larch. Never even heard of it

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.