How to Build a Fire

The Art of Fire Design

BY ROSHANA ARIEL
Ariel Enterprises

Building a fire is a real art. As odd as it seems, I have had fireplaces in the homes in which I've lived almost all my life, but I really didn't know how to build a fire until I met my boyfriend Brad. He is a fire designer!

He thinks it's funny that I think of him like that, but building a fire is an art, and he has that art down.

This article might seem elementary to kids who grew up in the Boy Scouts, or people who have gone camping all their lives and learned from an early age how to build a proper fire, but like I said, I grew up around fireplaces almost my whole life, and I didn't know how to build a fire properly.

There's nothing like a fire burning in your fireplace to add coziness to a room, to add a spark of romance to the mood, or to simply feel warm while you're reading a book or watching a movie.

With the price of heat these days, it's smart to keep the house cool and just heat one area with a fireplace.

The way I used to build a fire was to scrunch up some newspapers and put them on the bottom of the fireplace, between the grate "rows"; then I'd put a couple of logs on top and hope they'd catch fire. Dumb, I know.

If they didn't catch fire, I'd just add some more newspapers and try again.

My boyfriend taught me about the building of the fire, which requires -- hello! -- kindling, along with the paper and the logs. You need little twigs, medium-sized twigs and bigger twigs.

He also taught me about keeping the fire going, and what's most important about that.

And what's most important? Heat! Sounds obvious, right? But it wasn't to me. I didn't understand that you need to keep putting the hot coals produced by the pieces that have burned and fallen down UNDER the rest of the fire to keep it hot, keep feeding it.

In fact, he put shallow bricks under my fire grate to bring the coals up closer to the logs so they would help to keep the fires going by providing more heat.

Watching him, I learned about how a fire wants to "be." How your logs need to be close enough to each other to play off the other's heat -- but not so close as to cut off the air circulation. It's an art.

I learned to work with my fire, understand how it works -- the heat, the air, the proximity of the pieces and the graduated size of the twigs, branches and logs.

What I discovered is that watching a pro build a fire and keep it going is a delightful experience. The fires become works of art, works of beautiful architecture. It's such a useful and noble skill.

Go ahead and practice building your fires; work with them, get to know what they like. Remember, paper, then tiny kindling, medium-sized twigs, then larger twigs and branches (all dry, of course). Then your logs go on top of that. Make sure you've left room for air to circulate all around and inside your "structure," and light it. As it burns, move the pieces that fall off to places that need heat, try to keep your heat, your coals collected in one area underneath the rest of the fire. As it burns, move the outer pieces toward the center, where the heat is.

And enjoy your ever-changing creation!