A Story on Firestarting

I occasionally attend a multi-day gathering with friends at an old homesteader cabin in the Mojave. The area is desolate, and for one weekend we bring in generators and DJ equipment, a stage and about 80 people camp, party and generally have a good time. We shoot guns at the private range and generally engage in standard desert activities: eating, drinking, esoteric conversations and taking in the natural beauty of the desert. At night it is cold, so we have fires - inevitably started by yours truly.

In this particular weekend, it was unseasonably cold and as the sun set, everyone was gathered in and around the cabin. It was crammed in there while no one was paying attention to the cold desert beauty at dusk. So I went outside to start a fire. At first, it was just me and Sam, and a friend or two stopping by. We chucked more wood into it and really got it going. Then others came out and started adding wood and pretty soon there were a lot of people by the fire. The fire was going really well and people were enjoying adding wood and taking care of it. Since there were 2 other fire pit possibilities and plenty of wood, I moved onto start another fire in another location.

Same story as the first one. At first it was me and Sam (my firestarting partner) stacking the wood, the newspaper, twigs and lighting the match in several locations. We always get the fire started on the first try. Again, we were alone with the fire, but slowly folks moved from the first fire and others from the cabin came out to be around the second fire. It was closer to the stage and dance area so people would stop by to warm up between dancing and wandering.

The same thing happened for the third fire. At that point I would occasionally need to add wood to the previous other fires.

I feel like that's what happened here in LA Tech. There are tons of people around adding fuel to the fire, chucking on their own pieces of wood. Making a fire bigger and even starting their own. The fires are beautiful and roiling. It's very hot and going quite nicely.

Comments

[hellyweed]

it is truly interesting how all of these fires are finally rising out of the ashes of the prior firestorm. The trick will be to keep them adequately stoked without letting them burn out too fast.

That being said, in this relatively cold angeleno winter, the fires are nice - and my marshmallows are getting good and toasty ;)