Why I’m so fired up for winter!
The hiss, the crackle, the blossoming blaze – one writer’s celebration of a REAL log fire . . .
My most longed-for moment of the year happens about now. When the leaves have fallen, the clocks are pushed back, and the first hint of chilly polar air drifts south to sharpen the mornings and frost the nights, then I joyfully take up the box of matches, apply flame to kindling, and watch my log fire come to life for another glorious season of wood burning.
Is there any sound more reassuring than the first crackle of dry wood as the flames gather round it?
What could be more intoxicating than air lightly scented with the first, gentle whiffs of smoke; sweet if applewood is being burnt, robust if oak, or sharp like pinescented alpine air.
then, as the flames gather and the hiss and the crackle is drowned by the roar and rumble of the blossoming blaze, my fire speaks of comfort like no other, and offers a guarantee that no matter what the coming winter may throw at us, as long there is good, dry wood in the shed then we will never starve.
It’s a primitive reaction, I know, and a million miles from the turning of a heartless thermostat to stir a grumbling boiler. But there has to be something in our lives that connects us with those who survived our harsh winter climate when central heating meant sitting in a circle round a camp fire.
We push buttons, stab screens and rotate dials in a wired world over which we have no control or scant understanding; but a fire pays no homage to a computerised world. It doesn’t respond to clicks. It was there before any of that stuff, providing the warmth that fed and comforted a developing human race, and it will be there long after digital living has faded into history, I am sure of that.
I go to great lengths to enjoy my winters by the fire.
I had a count the other day; we don’t have a large house but I can boast four wood fires — and while plenty of people still adore an open fire, all of mine are wood-burning stoves, to which I would add an outdoor wood-burning oven which gives a deep, golden crust to my indifferent loaves of bread (but I am getting better).
the lighting of each and every one of them remains a joy, a near religious act, and the making of a cold and chilly house into a warm and cosy one by the mere kindling of flame remains one of life’s small miracles at which I never cease to wonder.
A life without a fire in it would be no life for me.
I remember my first experience of open fires. they were coal fires since I was brought up in the mining areas of south yorkshire.
my granny’s council flat had a coal-fired range which was fuelled with Welsh anthracite, mostly nicked by my father from the filthy power station where he worked.
This ‘steam coal’ burnt with a fury akin to the fires of hell and warmed that tiny sitting room to the heat of the Flying scotsman’s footplate.
But, boy, how a piece of pork turned to luscious crackling when held at arm’s length on a fork in front of the hot coals.
And how perfect the bread rolls that spilled from the oven as the fire cooled. And how blissful the evenings in front of the embers, a black and white image flickering on a rare television set.
In front of that fire, I watched the first ever episode of Doctor Who. that’s what open fires of all kinds mean to me; food, warmth, comfort, family.
But don’t think for one moment that I am unaware that woodburning is finding itself in the hot seat, and those who would pour cold water on our flames are gathering. they talk of banning wood-burning stoves in highly polluted places, such as London, following estimates by King’s College London which said that half the toxic emissions in some parts of the capital came from burning wood. happily, I live far away from London, so you can’t blame me, but it’s a problem, I agree.
highly efficient modern stoves, many of which are certified for use in smoke- control areas, do provide something of a solution for city-dwellers. sensibly, the stovemakers now build them with panoramic glass doors so none of the seductive sight of leaping flames is lost. they hardly smoke, so efficiently do they burn. But they do throw out particulates into the atmosphere. yet is any form of burning free from guilt? I doubt it.
how much energy was burnt to build a gas boiler, or construct the infrastructures that channel the energy to our homes?
We may not see the emissions these far-away factories produce — the flames are far out of sight — but they are every bit as abundant as wood smoke, that’s for sure. If wood-burning is to maintain its place in our culture, then we need a modern approach. may I recommend mine?
First of all, I buy wood from a forester I know whose approach to producing firewood I approve of.
In the days when I was as green as a freshly felled chunk of oak and couldn’t tell good firewood from bad, I bought a load from a lad down the lane.
had I known then what I know now, I might have questioned why the wood still had leaves growing from it. sap was pouring from it like a running tap.
shun the amateur wood salesmen, and certainly have nothing to do with those overpriced bags of wood piled high outside garages. these will have travelled miles, unnecessarily imported by sea. We have an abundance of forests and woodlands of our own.
In fact, the best thing that could happen to neglected woodland, which we have aplenty, is for them to earn their livings once again by providing fuel.
Paradoxically, the best thing you can do to a wood is to keep chopping its trees down. the removal of mature wood gives light and air to the undergrowth and allows new saplings to flourish.
Cut to the ground, many species, of which the glorious ash is the most renowned, will regrow with such haste that within seven years they will have recovered completely.
the stumps which are left after cutting are called ‘stools’ and it is from these that new shoots will repeatedly sprout. Nothing will stop them.
I was taken by a forester to the site of a massive stool, the size of a small roundabout, to be told that ash stools were probably the oldest living things in the whole countryside.
In our climate-conscious world, trees have another trump card to play. Burning wood produces much of the current public enemy: carbon dioxide, which we are told is bad. But growing trees absorb it from the atmosphere making the entire cycle carbon neutral, which is reassuring. As far as greenhouse gases go, you burn wood with a clear conscience.
But I sense some have ‘got it in’ for wood and would see its burning banned. If, like me, you are an enthusiastic wood burner, then we must cut our critics down in flames.
Buy wood from those who manage their woodlands in a sustainable way. Ensure it is bone dry and makes hardly any smoke when burning — let a hissing, smouldering, smoking fire be one of which you are ashamed.
Build yourself a log pile with the care of a sculptor, and be proud of it.
make every part of the process, from the cutting of the timber, through the chopping and splitting to the eventual lighting, be your business.
then take your box of matches, your kindling and fuel, and rest back in your chair as the flames gather and the heat starts to flow. Close your eyes and ponder for a moment the miracle at the heart of the blazing log fire.
this is how civilisation grew and blossomed, by the light and heat of burning wood. And that is why, this winter, in front of a roaring log fire is the most civilised place to be.