Wet condition fires

 

  Hey all, I posted this on another forum, and thought it might be of some help here.  It's of an experience I had a few weekend ago building a fire in my yards fire pit after the major storms that just finished.

  This past weekend I needed to do some yard cleanup, from the carnage the high winds left behind, so I opted to build a fire in my fire ring in my lower yard while I raked up redwood duff, moved large widow makers and cleaned up pathways. I began my fire with dry old bill papers from inside, used my peanut lighter and a single piece of fatwood that I shaved a bunch of tinder from. I gathered a bunch of small twigs and piled them onto the paper with the fatwood shavings, had my medium sized twigs ready, and split an oak fire log into 1/4 pieces. (All the twigs and kindling were dry) fire pit was very damp!
 Fire ring has charcoal remnants from previous fires and the pit was really damp (Wet). I placed my paper tinder up off the wet ashes, piled my small twigs on and lit the paper. The small twigs caught, and I added a little more and got a nice small blaze going. Then I added my medium sized kindling and saw the flames, seemed to be getting bigger, and I thought I'd be ok to go rake an area up real quick, then return and tend the fire.
 Well, I was off the fire for maybe 5 min, then returned to an almost out fire! I stoked it back up, adding some more small twiggs, redwood duff, etc, and got the fire going again. Shifted the medium sized (1/2" sized twigs/sticks) around so they were over the hot coals, added some fresh ones to the fire. the fire seemed to going good now. Time for some more yard work. Watching the fire, I performed the set out chores of moving all the downed heavy branches to another area of my yard, then noticed a lot of smoke from the fire! Again the darn thing was almost out! Again stoked it back to life, and finally got the blaze going and enjoyed it for another 2 hours or so (Until the small pile of wood I stacked was used up)
 Well, it seemed I was doing more fire tending than yard work (No problem there) I was surprised at how quickly my fire, which I thought was going good, died down. It hadn't got hot enough for me to add the large firewood pieces yet, I was trying to build up the coals before I did that. I guess due to the extremely damp/wet pit, it was sucking the heat from what coals.

 My lesson learned is this: Although the fire pit was in my sight the whole time, (10-15 yards away) don't leave it unattended. Leave the yard work for warmer days!

  What was happening to keep the fire down, and from taking off as I expected it to do, was the saturated ground in the pit, (Old coals) was giving my fire Hypothermia.   Basically sucking the heat out of any coals that fell, thus preventing my fire from really growing, and the high moisture content was helping to keep the fire down.
   Next fire I build will be on top of some redwood bark pieces.  (To insulate the fire from the wet surface)
While tending the fire between my little yard tasks, I knew the pit was wet, but didn't think it would affect the fire I was trying to build, I was wrong! 
  Lesson learned is if the ground is damp, insulate your fire tinder from the dampness.

I don't think the ground moisture had anything to do with it.  I think the moisture content of the fuel is where the fire was having issues.  It's been wet and plenty of time to soak up moisture in fuel that has been left out sitting on wet ground. 

Also, redwood is very fire resistant.  It will burn, but not like other woods will. 

 
  The kindling I used was dry, some of the started logs I used were split from 1/4 logs that were kept covered.   However, I think your are also correct, the combination of the wet pit and damp everything else was probably a major contributor.

 

  i was of course doing the same thing last week on the approved burn days. Since I had some old burned logs from the last season's burning just sitting there, I laid them side by side as a "floor" & built my fire on top of them rather than the old charcoal left in the pit.
Worked like a charm, not sure why it never occurred to me to do that before.
I told my wife "That little Canadian dude (Les Stroud) would be approve"