Fire Starters

Well, I hope you all are having a good summer. Our vacation every year is spent camping in the woods of Maine. One of the highlights of camping is the evening campfire. I'm not out to prove my manhood by rubbing sticks together or any other difficult "manly" method of starting a fire. I rely on my own version of a "fire-starter." I make them up in batches that last years. It's simple. All you need is:

• small paper cups (bathroom size)
• coarse wood shavings (I use chain saw shavings, but I suppose the stuff you buy in pet stores to line your gerbil cage would work).
• melted wax (paraffin from the store or just old candles).

Here is the process:

1. Melt the wax. CAUTION: NEVER melt wax directly over a stove or hotplate. The wax can overheat and cause a flash fire. Instead, use a double-boiler. This is a set of pans that fit together - one on top of the other. You put water in the bottom one, and the top one is heated by the steam. This is more than enough heat to melt wax, and insures that the wax never gets above the boiling point of water (212 Deg.F) which is below the wax's autoignition temperature (the temp. at which it bursts into flames).
   
2. Fill each cup with wood shavings (You might as well do this while the Wax is melting).
3. Carefully pour wax into the cups. You don't need to fill the cup completely (as evidenced by a pool of melted wax on the top of the cup). It is sufficient to pour in just enough to bind all the wood together. You will see through trial and error about how much this is, but I've found it to be about half a cup's worth (You can sort of see the wax level as it starts to melt the wax on the cup itself. CAUTION: The wax is HOT!
   
4. Let cool.

To Use:

1. Lay the cup on it's side in the fire pit (fireplace).
2. Build wood pile above it, leaving access to the cup for lighting.
   
3. Light the paper side of the cup. My fire-starters burn for about 15-20 minutes. More than enough to get any fire started.
   
4. Watch the fire build in intensity - with no other intervention from you.

And there you have it. The Astolfi Fire-Starter. Most camp stores sell some variation of this, but I like to make my own. Happy camping!