Outdoor wisdom often comes in fits and starts

THEY SAY THAT EVERY outdoorsman firmly believes two things. The first is that the fish that got away was a world record and the second is the he or she can build a fire better than the next person.

I was reminded of this the other day when I watched my friend’s pitiful attempt at building a fire. Sure, the fire he was tending was going, but the flames were hardly clearing the top of the little metal chimney stove the water pot was seated on.

So I did what any experienced outdoorsman would do – I started fixing his pitiful fire when he was not looking. I did this by adding bits of birch bark and sticks that were probably much dryer than the ones he had used.

How do I know they were dryer? You could just tell.

As a result, the fire he had been tending to for the last five minutes really took hold and, had we been

in a survival situation, the pasta with creamy Alfredo mushroom sauce which we were cooking would have been even warmer and probably would have saved our lives ’til dinner.

Unfortunately, before I could make it even better, he returned and went back to wrecking the fire.

A lot of people who do not understand fires – basically everyone but me – would have wondered how you can tell a fire is wrecked. Well, he wrecked this one by poking a stick at it and fanning the flames incorrectly.

Oh sure, the fire survived these amateurish attempts, and even kept us warm, but only because of the work I had previously done to encourage it.

This is a small miracle though. Only a rank amateur would have used the poking stick my buddy was using. And the way he fanned it was OK for mid-August but certainly not robust enough for early November. Trust me.

The sad part was he was not open to criticism so he’ll probably never learn the correct way – also known as “my way” – to build a fire.

This leads me to another point. My buddy is one of those purists who gathers dry kindling, bark, twigs and the like. Then he relies on flint and steel to create a spark which he coddles until it smokes and breaks into a tiny, delicate flame.

All this is cute, but not really required if you bring enough lighter fluid and a lighter.

I know it is the romantic thing to be able to create a fire with nothing more than bark, dry pine needles, kindling and small pieces of strategically placed fire wood and flint and steel, but I’m also pretty sure that primitive peoples would have gladly traded all those things in for a lighter, blow torch or a propane stove had they been available. They were, after all, a practical people.

The best fire maker I ever met routinely used a gallon of unleaded gasoline to “get things going.” I have never gone that far, but only because I look silly without eyebrows.

The point I am making here is that everyone has a different way to build a fire. And, sometimes, if you want to keep peace in the outdoors you have to sit back and watch another person make a roaring one in a way that’s completely wrong.

I did this on that day, while I was thinking about that world record smallmouth bass I lost last summer.