Fatwood

We’re so close. Each morning is crisper and cooler, football is back, and you can dig out the flannel from the back of the closet. Fall is almost here.

            Last weekend was rather busy for me – UT’s home opener (an awesome win), blacksmithing, old friends, etc. Though we’re quickly approaching my favorite time of year, I didn’t get a chance to go on a hike. I’m always disappointed when I can’t take full advantage of a beautiful weekend and make it to the great outdoors. But such is life.

            Fortunately, I had a few free hours Sunday evening and decided, in the interest of maintaining a blog, to go into the woods and make a short post on a very important survival/bushcraft skill: making a fire. There are more ways to make a fire than I could ever learn or care to know, but the hardest part of any method is getting it started. That initial ignition is crucial. I always carry a firesteel in the sheath of my knife; for those of you who have never watched the Discovery Channel, a firesteel is a rod typically composed of a magnesium alloy which, when scraped with a sharp edge, produces flakes ignited by the friction. The sparks it throws burn at temperatures exceeding 5,500°F. So really hot. Hot enough to ignite most dry tinder easily. Yet, if your tinder is wet, there’s a problem. Nature, however, was so kind as to provide us a source of fire-starting material, readily available in most biomes (especially northeast Tennessee), which can be easily lit even when wet – fatwood.

            Known across the world by many different names, fatwood is a common and valuable resource. Fatwood is essentially the heartwood of a pine tree – it houses a dense supply of resin (or pitch, if you prefer) and is very resistant to decay; it's from fatwood that turpentine and tar are produced. The best source of fatwood is in the decayed remains of a pine stump. Whether the tree is broken by wind, struck by lightning, or felled by a logger, the stump sits and rots away – except for the fatwood. Typically, there will be a slightly taller, harder protrusion from the center of the stump which is the remnant of the center-most heartwood; the outer-most bark and sapwood has rotted away. Stumps such as this can be found throughout any boreal forest, but among the best places to find pine stumps and fatwood are old logging cuts. There you can find plenty of stumps just like…



This.


            Once you find a useful stump, dig in. I recommend carrying an axe for such a chore, as I did on Sunday; it makes for quick work and blasts the fatwood into convenient chunks. You'll know the fatwood when you see/smell it. It's brightly colored in reds, oranges, and yellows, and smells like Pine-Sol.



That's the power of Pine-Sol, baby!

            Once you've gathered as much fatwood as you want to haul, store it in a plastic or metal container. I don't recommend storing it for a long period of time in any cloth material (such as your pockets). This stuff is loaded with resin - trust me, you won't want that mess.

            Soaking wet, fatwood ignites easily. But it's always best, just as with any tinder, that you make shavings of the material for quickest ignition. The thinner and greater the surface area, the easier it will burn. Direct contact with a flame (like a lighter) will easily ignite any piece of fatwood, but cool kids carry firesteels.

            Fatwood burns hotter than most tinder, since it's being accelerated by the oils in the wood, so be mindful of containers near or around a fire fueled by it. The flame isn’t the best to cook with either - the burning resin produces fumes that aren't pleasant.

Whenever I’m hiking, I’m always on the lookout for fatwood. I keep a supply in my backpack because, well, you never know when I’ll need it. A fire could save my life. But I know, around here, I’m never too far from all the tinder I need.

Thank you for reading! I really quite enjoy writing about the outdoors, something that is such a significant part of my life. I hope reading this blog brings you the joy it brings me to create. I plan to have a more adventurous and picturesque post coming soon, but until then I will leave you with a selection from Robert Service…I think this is becoming a thing…

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The Song of the Camp-Fire

…Let me star the dim sierras, stab with light the inland seas;

Roaming wind and roaring darkness! Seek no mercy at my hands;

I will mock the marly heavens, lamp the purple prairies,

I will flaunt my deathless banners down the far, unhouseled lands.

In the vast and vaulted pine-gloom where the pillared forests frown,

By the sullen, bestial rivers running where God only knows,

On the starlit coral beaches when the combers thunder down,

In the death-spell of the barrens, in the shudder of the snows;

In a blazing belt of triumph from the palm-leaf to the pine,

As a symbol of defiance lo! The wilderness I span;

And my beacons burn exultant as an everlasting sign

Of unending domination, of the mastery of Man;

I, the Life, the fierce Uplifter, I that weaned him from the mire;

I, the angel and the devil, I, the tyrant and the slave;

I, the Spirit of the Struggle; I, the mighty God of Fire;

I, the Maker and Destroyer; I, the Giver and the Grave.

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