Flint, chert, jasper, and quartzite all have a hardness of about 6½. Granites are in the 6 range. Obsidian (volcanic glass) is in the 5 to 6 range. Any of these rocks are strong enough to generate sparks.

There is a real challenge to start a fire without a spark. Each spark has the potential to start the fire, yet many fail to set the flame. The task is difficult, may seem impossible, but when faced with darkness and cold, determination is essential.

Start by sticking a long piece of kindling into the ground above your tinder at about a 30-degree angle, with the other end of the stick pointing into the wind. Then lean smaller pieces of kindling against both sides of the longer piece to build a tent. As the kindling catches fire add more, followed by your firewood.

fire

Using one of your favorite campfire tools, strip the wet bark off of a stick to expose the dry inner layers. Peel this dry wood into wood shavings—voila: the perfect tinder! This technique works for larger pieces of wood, too. Use a hatchet to split larger sticks and logs for access to the dry core.

In an extended fire, you load large pieces of wood into your wood burning stove, tightly packed, so the fire slowly spreads from log to log, extending your burn for 6 to 8 hours or more. You won’t need to reload any time soon. This sort of burn maintains a low, steady heat that can stay burning all night.

It takes between 5 minutes and 2 hours to put out an average house fire. The timeline can vary greatly due to construction, fire department response time, the number of emergency resources, cause of the fire, water supply and how far advanced the fire is when it is called in.

Wood with a high moisture content doesn’t burn as efficiently. This is because your fire has to produce a lot of heat just to boil off the moisture first. High moisture logs, or ‘green wood’, also produces much more smoke.

Top tips for starting a fire in wet weather:

1. Use wood from the inside of logs as that’s where it’s driest.
2. Lots of extra kindling is the key.
3. Use large logs or rocks to build a platform that will hold your fire off the wet ground.
4. Lay wood beside your fire to help it dry out as you go.

The kindling, very small and thin pieces of wood, will slowly catch from the tinder fire. When wood is wet, you need a lot more tinder and kindling than you do with dry wood. Plan to use up to four times as much to get a good fire going.

Wet wood produces more smoke and more harmful by-products, which pollute the air. With kiln dried wood, the drying process burns off sap and water from the wood, resulting in a more efficient and environmentally-friendly burn. The smoke emissions from wet wood can be 3 or 4 times more than those of kiln dried logs.

How long does it usually take for wood to dry after rain? Generally speaking, it can take up to a week for your wood to dry after the typical rainstorm. There might be some residual water left over after 2-3 days, but that will get you most of the way there.

If the base of the cloud from which they are falling is at 2,000 feet above your head, it takes those drops 1.1 minutes to reach the ground. An average raindrop falls at about 14 mph, and will reach the ground in 1.6 minutes. Smaller drops go slower and will reach the ground in up to seven minutes.

Yes, but firewood dries slower in winter. Sunlight—one of the key ingredients for drying wood—is in short supply in winter. Though drier winter air helps extract some moisture from the firewood, the process is much slower than in warmer weather.