"Fire Starting"

Fire Starting was the next class, taught by Al and Michael. Here Al explains what you need for the bow drill method:

It's important to use the right material. For the hand drill and bow drill methods, use light-density wood, such as the flower stalk of Bear grass for a hearth board (the board on the ground), and a piece of Cottonwood root for the drill. For tinder you can shred dry bark, such as Cottonwood or Juniper. You can also crumble the fungus growing on a dead Cottonwood tree. In the picture below notice how he pins the hearth board down with sticks, then kneels on them to hold them in place:

Check to see if you're using good materials. Drill for a few minutes, then look at the sawdust. It should be a fine powder. If it's coarse like coffee grounds, don't use it. Find different wood. Al said "The drill should be harder than the hearth board if you can't find similar wood." It's okay to use the same wood for the drill and the hearth board.

To do the hand drill, spit on your hands and rub it on the stick to lubricate it. It helps your hands grip the stick as you spin it. Make a divot (dip) with your pocket knife into the hearth board to hold the drill in place. Here, Al has gotten an ember and dumped it into his tinder bundle. Now he's blowing on it and is beginning to get a flame:

I'm not going to describe the procedure for starting the fire. Many websites, including http://www.youtube.com/ have exellent videos on primitive fire starting. Watching those would teach you better than any description I could give. So I'll just share the tips that Al and Michael gave us.

Keep your tinder bundle tight so that after you dump the ember into it, the ember won't fall out the other end. After you dump the ember into it, hold it up level with your face, not below, so the smoke won't blow into your face. Other tinder you can use besides shredded bark include goose down, very dry animal dung, inner fur of cat, fox, dog, etc., and the soft side of a mullein leaf. If you're using short shreds of tinder you can leave the tinder bundle sitting on the ground while you blow on it.

When you're drilling, go easy until you see smoke. Here, Michael was just starting to get smoke with his bow drill:

And here is Al doing a bow-drill without a bow, using his mouth to hold the board that pins down the drill, and his hands instead of a stick to pull the string back and forth like a bow:

Michael holds up the parts for using a Fire Piston to make a fire:

Al demonstrates a bamboo method from Asia or the south Pacific. They put tinder in the top piece of bamboo, cut a slit in the bottom, and rubbed it on the bottom piece of bamboo until they got an ember where the tinder sits on the slit. It takes a little longer but it works:

Once you see smoke, put your energy into it. But don't rush once you get an ember. It's okay to let the ember sit a couple minutes in the hearth board. It ignites more dust while you're waiting to dump it into the tinder bundle.