January 25, 2014

I remember years ago reading the classic short story by Jack London entitled “To Build a Fire.”  It was the story of a man hiking in the Yukon in 50 degrees below zero, needing that essential element fire to survive. Tonight as I struggle to get a fire going in the wood burning fireplace insert, I feel something of that man’s frustration but not his desperation. Mostly I am irritated that the fires I have been building the past week are very slow to catch and require many trips to the fireplace to poke logs, adjust the air flow, and sometimes start all over from the beginning.

Build is the operative word. I try to build a base of several sheets of crumpled newspapers, a few pieces of fat wood from LLBean, and kindling that I have gathered from outside. On top I place a fire starter or two. I frame the base with two short logs on each side and two longer logs across the top. I have learned that after lighting the fire I need to keep one of the glass doors slightly open for the first five minutes, and not to choke back the air intake lever too soon. This is a new skill I am learning, or reviving from my Girl Scout camping days at Ft. Knox. Bill was the one who built the fires here. It was a guy thing. I just sat back and admired.

I think part of the problem right now may be slightly damp wood. Before the snow fell on Tuesday I filled up the wood rack by the fireplace with dry wood, but for the past few days the logs that I have been lugging inside were at the top of the snow covered pile by the kitchen door. I knocked the snow off but the logs still were damp. I guess I need to buy a tarp. A year ago that stack by the back door was five feet long and five feet high, split and expertly stacked by my friend Alan. I burnt most of those logs last winter, and now the stack is almost gone, meaning I will need to push the plastic lawn cart out to the horse barn where I have two full racks of aged split logs. After multiple trips I will have a new log pile outside the kitchen door. Wouldn’t it be loverly if there were manor house servants here to take care of these jobs?

If damp wood is the problem, how did anyone in the wilderness survive? And I know that the man in London’s story did not have fire starters or fat wood from LLBean or an infinite number of matches, nor the oil furnace that is the principal source of my heat. If you have forgotten what happened to the man in the Yukon, here is the link to the full story: http://www.jacklondons.net/buildafire.html

But I the meantime the fire in my fireplace is sputtering and needs attention, and I must return to one of the most basic tasks of humans through the ages:

Building a fire.