3 Go-To Campfire Setups & When to Use Them — A Beginner's Guide

Chris shares his three favourite fire lays and explains when each one works best in the field.

Fires are the heart of any camp. Even on a light day hike, cracking out the Jetboil or Trangia, the atmosphere is set, the muscles relax, and you settle into the surroundings, regardless of the weather.

Here in the UK, we have very little accessible land where we can have open campfires. Even in our back gardens, we have to adhere to the law. We must not permit smoke to billow onto a main road or be accused of creating harmful fumes. Burning garden waste can be a nuisance to neighbours and land you with an ASBO!

But it's not all doom and gloom. With an increase in people wanting to explore the wilderness, many more remote campsites permit open fires in designated areas or within a set of guidelines.

What I wanted to share in this email was my three go-to fire setups and when I would use them:

• 1. Lots of Little
• 2. The Inverted V
• 3. The Jenga Stack

1 Lots of Little

Most of my fire lighting these days is with groups, where the focus is on teaching how to light and sustain a fire, rather than creating a blazing bonfire. The style I often use when teaching, or when making a quick brew in the woods, I refer to as "Lots of Little".

I prepare multiple bundles broken down by thickness: matchstick, pencil, and finger-thick sticks. With a tinder source ignited on the raft of sticks, I (or the students) will add the bundles one at a time to keep the flame going.

This will be a continual flame fire, sufficient to boil water, but the nature of the relatively thin twigs means it will burn itself out quickly, leaving little char or wasted material that can be easily dispersed to leave no trace. This is what gives us the stereotypical tipi-looking campfire.

The "Lots of Little" method — small bundles of thin sticks fed gradually to maintain a clean, controlled flame.

2 The Inverted V

For a more substantial and longer-term fire, I choose what I call the Inverted V. Using an arm-thick log as a windbreak, I use this to support two bundles of thin kindling, creating a roof over the tinder placed on the dry raft.

I will then stack more fuel material on either side, gradually getting thicker and thicker. Once the tinder is lit, the roof of thin kindling catches and I start to pull in the Inverted V, bringing more and more fuel into the fire.

This will create a bed of embers as well as make the windbreak start to smoulder. Great to pop a billy can in (ensuring the handles are pointing outwards). This fire is scalable and with a big enough windbreak can make a great campfire to keep going into the evening. Rolling the windbreak log away will let the fire burn out, but you will be left with a charred log to dispose of.

The "Inverted V" method — a windbreak log supports kindling that gradually feeds the fire from both sides.

3 The Jenga Stack

The final fire lay is one I use when cooking — a bit of a hybrid. It is fairly low maintenance and is almost a "light and leave" setup.

Creating a Jenga-like stack of sticks with the thicker ones on the bottom, start off with a few full layers, then create a hashtag or log cabin affair. Fill the cabin with birch bark and other tinders that, once lit, will drop down into the layers below, creating a great big bed of embers ready to cook on or move around a Dutch oven.

The "Jenga Stack" method — a log cabin structure that burns down into a deep bed of cooking embers.