A Convenient Firestarter

Everytime I need to fire up the stove, I’d always need some pieces of scrap paper to light the tinder. Most of the time, I’d scrounge for old newspapers in the garage or scrap paper elsewhere. And most of the time also, I’d still have leftover scraps of newspaper after cooking which I conveniently misplace. So I said, “Why not a convenient source to get your scrap paper for firestarting?” And then I thought of junk mail like booklets of old company financial statements, stockhoder reports or what have you. Rather than just throw them, I now used them to be my neat convenient source as shown below.

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Making a No-Cost Chimney Extension Filter

When the grill (superkalan) was still new, we didn’t clean or inspect it regularly. Hey, it always worked well and it was new! So imagine one day when the smoke coming out of the chimney extension didn’t look right. By this, I mean the smoke just sort of lingered and drooped downwards rather than the usual rapid upward billowing. There was also more smoke than usual seeping out from the plates and the fuel feeder. In other words, there was too much smoke but not enough fire.

Somehow I suspected that hot air just wasn’t pulling the smoke out of the chimney as easily and as quickly. We were just starting to cook for the grill and concluded there must be something blocking inside the chimney. With potholders and gloves in hand, I carefully detached the chimney extension from the chimney. Yup, there was so much soot clinging inside the walls of the chimney. Lo and behold, a leaf was resting inside the chimney all blackened and thick with soot. The inside was 80% blocked. No wonder there was smoke everywhere. There was nowhere else for the smoke to go.

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Picking the Right Dried Leaves for Firestarters

So you need to build a robust file quickly and start cooking in a few minutes. What, no dried leaves for starting the fire?

But that’s one important component for building quick, no-cost fires. Wait, just how dry is “dry”? If you think any fallen leaveswould foot the bill, well, the answer is “no”. What you need are leaves that would pass what I call the “crush test”.


To do this:

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Ending the Fire Safely and Efficiently

Imagine you’ve done all your cooking and grilling and now’s the time to wrap it up. Then you discover you have so much more fuel still in the grill. What do you do to put out the fire? Douse water on the still burning embers? No. no. no. The best cost-effective way is to save the burning coals. Here’s what you can do:

1. With a pair of tongs, get the bigger chunks that you can easily pick up. Be careful here. You don’t want to drop the hot coals on your feet or on anything that may burn.
2. Put the big chunks inside an open tin can. A tin can with a lid for powdered infant milk is good.
3. Close the tin can with its lid CAREFULLY. You could use the pair of tongs for this.
   
   

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Ways to End a Fire

An analogy of the Fire Triangle is a Fire Tripod where all 3 legs are needed for the fire to “stand”. The way to end the fire is by removing one of the legs.

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Easy Way to Start a Fire

Before, I’ve always been amazed at how some folks, typically those from the countryside, seemingly build fires effortlessly. It’s as if they do it all by instinct! Well, I suppose some parts of the process is learned through experience like knowing exactly when the fire “catches on” or when more elbow grease is needed for fanning; or when it’s timeto safely add more wood without killing the fire.

The trick is to have abundant firestarters like dried leaves to really heat up and start the burning process for the main fuel like firewood. You simply cannot make firewood burn with just a match – unless of course you douse the firewood with gasoline or kerosene beforehand. But this is low-cost grilling, right? So, nopes, there’s no need for those petroleum products. This is what you do:

1. Strip several pieces of paper and slightly crumple them. These crumpled pieces will form the first layer.
   
2. Position dried leaves in a stack or pile so there’s plenty of air below. Don’t jam all leaves otherwise the fire suffocates due to lack of air.
   
3. Position a few dried twigs or small branches on top of the heap.
   
4. With a safety match, light a small piece of paper around 6 inches long and light the bottom layer made of crumpled paper.
   
   
   
5. Fan the fire to create flames that engulf the dried leaves. A big blaze should ensue and this will burn the dried twigs or small branches.
   
6. If the fire starts to die down, add more dried leaves and resume fanning.
   
7. As the leaves and twigs get consumed by the fire, the heap collapses with its weight. The key here is to ensure that the branches don’t fall all over the place.
   
   

An enclosed space (like the superkalan’s body) to contain the heap makes this easier. This is basically what a chimney firestarter does. Starting a fire with the above materials is fast and easy. You only need to get it going and then keep it going.