Home › Cook Fires › Camp Cook Fires (Credit goes to the Boy Scouts)

Camp Cook Fires (Credit goes to the Boy Scouts)

Credit goes to the Boy Scouts for classifying the kinds of campfires best suited to cooking and bringing the names for them into common use. Favorite fires are thus described in Cooking, their official handbook devoted to requirements for obtaining the "Merit Badge for Cooking," from which we quote the following:

Why Break Your Back?

Assuming that you know how to build a fire, the next most important consideration is where to build it. The great majority of cooking fires are built on the ground, and in most cases this is unavoidable, and so is the inevitable backache, more or less severe, produced by stooping. But why break your back if a large flat boulder about waist-high is available? To find such a natural fireplace is well worth a bit of additional hiking, especially if a number of meals are to be prepared before camp is moved.

If a boulder of the right kind-that is, with a sufficiently flat top and of good height-is available, build a horseshoeshaped fireplace on it, from rocks which are quite likely to be lying about. The walls of the fireplace need be no more than about six inches high. If there is no large boulder, but plenty of smaller rocks at hand, and much cooking is to be done, it may be well worth while to build a little cairn or heap of stones, surmounted by a flat one large enough for your fire. At any rate, whether you elevate your fire or not, a stone fireplace, if it is properly built, is recommended by many campers as better than any other form that can be improvised in the woods.

The Trench Fire In time of drought when everything is tinder dry, or in windy weather, especially if the ground is strewn with dead leaves or thick sods of dry grass, build your fire in a trench. This is the best way, too, if fuel is scarce and you have to depend on brushwood, because a trench preserves heat. Dig the trench in line with the prevailing wind. The point is to get a good draught. Make the windward end somewhat wider than the rest, and deeper, sloping the trench upward to the far end. Line the sides with flat rocks, if they can be found, as they hold the heat for a long time and prevent the sides from crumbling in. Lay other rocks, or a pair of green poles, along the edges to support vessels. A little chimney of flat stones or sod, at the leeward end, will make the fire draw well. If there is some sheet iron to cover the trench quite a practical stove is made, but an open trench will do well if properly managed. Clay Fireplace Where dry, tough clay is found near the surface, and especially where you can dig into a hillside, you may decide to make your whole fireplace under ground. Simply dig a horizontal hole in the clay bank large enough for the cooking fire you will need. Extend this hole far enough into the bank to accommodate two or three pot or griddle holes through the surface layer covering your firebox, and at the extreme end dig one for a flue. Be careful in digging your firebox to leave an arched ceiling and several inches of undisturbed surface above to serve as a stove top -this to prevent a cave-in.

A flat stone, a slab of wood or a piece of tin or sheet iron large enough to cover the door of the firebox will aid greatly in controlling your draught and the intensity of your cooking fire. A clay, rock or tin flue built up a foot or so over your smoke hole will be well worth its cost for obvious reasons.

Log Fireplace A log fireplace is a luxury that can be enjoyed by the camp cook in many places where wood is plentiful. There are many types. Hunter, trapper, reflector, and log range are each popular in some section of the country. All have the advantage of letting the fireplace itself furnish part of the fuel as well as reflecting and helping to maintain a slow steady cooking heat. Many old woodsmen and guides favor the log cooking fireplace because the charred remains of the fireplace logs make a fine heater in front of their tents at night when mealtime is over. This applies especially to rough weather and winter short-term or trail camping. Trapper or Hunter Fire This fire has been the favorite cooking fire of America since the days when wood seemed inexhaustible. In the early days little thought was given to various types of fires, for it was generally considered that the trapper fire had no equal for cooking purposes. This tradition still exists, but because of the increasing scarcity of logs in most parts of the country, we must consider other fires.

The principles of the trapper fire should be carefully studied so that they may be applied to modifications of this old favorite where stones or earth must be substituted for logs. Note the following: 1 2 Method of retaining and confining the heat Heat reflection and radiation 3 Direction of wind and control of draft 4 Support for holding pots and pans.

To build a trapper fire, lay the side logs either parallel or at an angle, at such distance apart as will accommodate the size of the various cooking utensils. When starting the fire, when adding fuel, or when you wish to increase the draft, use a damper-stick to lift one log slightly off the ground.

There are several methods of starting this fire, depending upon the use to which it is to be put. (a) When a small meal is to be cooked, lay a crisscross fire; when it burns down, place the side logs in position. (b) When several large utensils are to be heated, remove the log on the side from which the wind is blowing, lay a long fire against the remaining log and when it is well ablaze, replace the other log. (c) When baked potatoes are on the menu, lay the side logs on two damper-sticks, put plenty of tinder (dry leaves may be used) between the logs; lay a liberal supply of firewood in crisscross fashion on top of them. When a sufficient amount of ashes and coals has been formed, completely bury the potatoes between the logs being sure that all potatoes are completely covered with ashes. Then replenish the fire and cook the rest of the meal. Back Log Fire This modification of the trapper fire requires only one large log. It is especially useful when you are going to boil and fry things at the same time. A back log fire is easy to regulate so that the cook may have "blaze for boiling, coals for broiling."

Lay the back log at an angle of about sixty degrees to the direction of the wind and build a fire against it on the side from which the wind is blowing. Hang the pot against the back log. When a sufficient amount of coals has been formed, rake the coals back between the fire-dogs for frying or broiling. (Fire-dogs are two extra logs between which a fire is built, in this case used to support a frying pan.) Trapper-Back Log Stone Fireplace As the name indicates, this is a combination of a trapper and a back log fire in which stones are substituted for logs. If large stones of nearly equal size are not available, build up the fireplace with smaller stones to a height of four or five inches. It is safer, especially if small stones are used, to hang the pot rather than rest it upon the stones. The fire may be started with a pyramid lay, or by putting a liberal supply of inflammable material such as leaves, bark, grasses or twigs between the stones. Then pile the firewood in crisscross fashion on top of the stones. Belmore Lay Daniel Carter Beard describes it this way: "The stove is made by two side logs or fire-dogs over which the fire is built and after it has fallen in, a mass of red hot embers, between the fire-dogs, two logs are laid across the dogs and one log is placed atop, so that the flame then comes up in front of them and sends the heat against the bread or bannock. (In this case bread in its pan is propped up to receive the reflected heat.) "At a convenient distance in front of the fuel logs, a waugan-stick is placed, reaching from one fire-dog to the other. "In wilderness work the frying pan is about the only domestic utensil carried and is used as a toaster, a baker, a broiler, a fryer, and a stew pan all combined. In it the Buckskin men and the Sourdough make their bread, and after the bread has been baked over the coals on the bottom, it is browned nicely on its top by tilting the pans in front of the fire and resting their handles against the waugan-stick. I have seen the baking fire used from British Columbia to Florida, but it was the explorer, Captain Belmore Browne, who showed me the use of the waugan-stick in connection with the baking fire, hence I have called this the Belmore Lay."

Building a Fire in Your Fireplace Every Tenderfoot must know how to light a fire with two matches-but to keep a cooking fire going for an hour or more while cooking a meal for a whole Patrol is big league stuff, hence a Cooking Merit Badge test.

The late Horace Kephart said, "Half the art of cooking is in making a proper fire." For a quick meal, when you have only to boil coffee and fry something, a large fire is not wanted.

Cooking Fire Drive a forked stick into the ground. Lay a longer green stick across it, slanting downward to the ground, and weight the lower end of this single stick with a rock, or peg it down with an inverted crotch. The slanting stick should have the stub of a twig left at the upper end to hold the pot bail (handle) in place (or you can notch it) and should be set at such an angle that the pot swings a foot or so clear of the ground.

Then gather a small armful of sound, dry twigs from the thickness of a lead pencil to that of your thumb. Do not take twigs that lie flat on the ground, for these are generally damp or rotten. Choose hardwood (oak, hickory, maple, etc.) if there is any. It lasts well and makes good embers. Soft woods burn quickly to dead ashes.

Select three of your best sticks for kindling. Shave each of them almost through, except at top and bottom, leaving the frills attached. Stick these into the ground, under the hanging pot, in tripod form, with curls down. Around them build a conical wigwam of other sticks, standing each on end and slanting to a common center. Leave plenty of free air spaces between the twigs. Fire requires plenty of air, and it burns best when it has something to climb up on. Now touch off the shaved kindling and in a moment you will have a small blast furnace under your pot of water, which will get steam up in a jiffy.

Then get some flat rocks, or two sticks of wood about five or six inches thick, to support the frying pan. The firewood will all drop to embers soon after the pot boils. Toss out the smoking butts, leaving only clear, glowing coals. Put your rocks or bed-sticks on either side, parallel and level. Set the pan on them, and fry away. So, in fifteen or twenty minutes from the time you drive your stake, the meal will be cooked.

When going into camp, start a larger fire the first thing, and set kettles of water over it. Then you will have coals and boiling water ready when you begin cooking. The rest is easy.

For baking, roasting, or stewing, a good bed of hard coals is needed. To get them in a hurry, split your wood into small sticks. Remember, it takes hardwood to make good coals.

How to Get a Bed of Coals The camp fire generally supplies a good bed of coals, but sometimes they are needed in a hurry, soon after camp is pitched. To get them, take sound hardwood, either green or dead, and split it into sticks of uniform thickness (say 11/4 inch face). Lay down two bed-sticks, cross these near the ends with two others, and so on up until you have a pen or crib a foot high. Start a fire in this pen.

Then cover the top of the pen with a layer of parallel sticks laid an inch apart. Cross this with a similar layer at right angles, and so upward for another foot. The free draft will make a roaring fire, and it will all burn down to coals together. The thick bark of hemlock, and of hardwoods generally, will soon give you coals for ordinary cooking. To keep coals for a long time, cover them with ashes, or with bark which will quickly burn to ashes.

In wet weather a bed of coals or even a small blaze can be shielded by slanting broad strips of green bark over it and overlapping the strips at the edges; or a piece of heavy canvas, stretched at a safe height above the fire-usually three to five feet is about right-will prove effective. You do not want a big fire to cook over. Many and many a time old and experienced woodsmen spoil their grub and their tempers, too, by trying to cook in front of a roaring winter camp fire. Go off to one side and lay your bed-logs, as above; then shovel from the camp fire enough coals to fill the space between the logs, within three inches of the top. You will now have a steady, even heat from end to end; it can be easily regulated; there is level support for every cooking pot, and you can wield a short-handled frying pan over such an outdoor range without scorching either the meat or yourself.