Are you tired of throwing together a campfire only to have it burn out ten minutes after lighting it? Or worse, not  being able to light it at all? Educate yourself with the article below and you'll soon be the expert your friends turn to when they have fire troubles of their own.

The keys to building a fire are allowing for proper airflow and building the fire in stages with the right fuel. It’s really easy if you understand these key elements. It’s really hard if you don’t.
A fire is just a chemical reaction that makes heat and light. And sometimes smoke. It’s just the combination of two chemicals that trade electrons, which leaves over some extra energy it gets rid of.

Oxidizer and Fuel

The first two things you need for a fire are Oxidizer and Fuel. For a typical campfire, the oxidizer is air and the fuel is wood.
There’s more though. Obviously. If you leave a piece of wood in the air and nothing else is added to it or changed, it doesn’t automatically catch fire. That would suck. Especially if you’re a tree.
Wood and air aren’t the only fuels/oxidizers either. You could also use combinations like Potassium Permanganate and Glycerine for a fire. It won’t burn for long but boy-howdy will it burn hot. Works even if it’s wet out.

Heat

One of the next things you need is Heat. If you’ve ever tried to start a fire on a cold rock, you realize that it’s pretty difficult. That’s because the reaction requires a certain amount of heat to keep going. Some Fuel/Oxidizer combinations are more affected by the temperature than others. A Fluorine fire, for example, doesn’t much care about the temperature.

Ignition Source

A lot of places combine Ignition Source with either Fuel or Heat. For our purposes, it’s a whole separate entity. For example, you can have a cow fire that was ignited by a lightning bolt from Zeus and extinguished after it fell off a parking structure onto the cold marble floor of a yuppie mall. Zeus was the ignition source, not the cow or the marble. You can also think of the fire itself as the ignition source to keep the fire going.

Surface Area

Things that have more surface area will burn more. This means that for the same amount of that fuel, it will burn hotter and light easier but in most cases, will burn out quicker. This is absolutely a key concept to building a proper fire. Grinding or chopping things up gives it more surface area, or even using some kind of liquid.

Air
The more air you can get to be able to be pulled through the insides of a fire, the better it’ll burn. leaving space between pieces of wood will allow more air between it. This is related to the Surface Area part of the equation since the air in a campfire is part of the chemical reaction.

There are basically four levels you can think of in a fire:
Ignition Source
Tinder
Kindling
Fuel Wood
Ignition Source

The thing you use to start a fire, like a spark from a magnesium fire starter (Ignition Source), usually catches Tinder on fire (especially if you’re using something like this for tinder). You can consider an accelerant, such as gasoline or lighter fluid, as either part of the Ignition Source or the Tinder, depending on what you’re trying to catch fire with it.

Tinder

Tinder is an arbitrary designation for something like dry grass or leaves that catch fire easily to burn Kindling.

Kindling

Kindling is something like small twigs that doesn’t usually catch easily enough to be started from your ignition source but it will easily enough if it’s above a pile of burning Tinder or a really hot Ignition Source.

Fuel Wood

Fuel Wood is what you’re trying to get to burn in the long run. Ok, it might not be wood but it’s the big amount of whatever that will keep going without you having to keep messing with it. These would be small logs and big logs. In most cases, small logs will be what you’ll be burning in a campfire.

The Location

Obviously fire likes to grow. You need to set a fire so it doesn’t start a forest fire set your tent/structure ablaze. You may need to clear an area from dry leaves etc.

If you have a steady breeze from one direction, such as in a small valley, you know which direction the smoke will be going. You don’t want to wake up smelling like smoked meat.

You especially want the fire to keep you warm if you’re using it at night to keep from freezing. Putting you between it and something to reflect the fire will help.

The Foundation

As we know, losing heat from the process can kill a fire. Because of this, you don’t want to start a fire on top of a cold rock or wet ground if you can avoid it. Especially if you don’t have any choice but to put a fire where water may pool up or run right through. In these cases, try to build a platform of rocks or something that won’t burn.

The Pile

The first thing you want to do is lay down a pile of Tinder. This could be dry grass, paper, cotton balls, cattail fluff or whatever. It’s the stuff that your Ignition Source will easily catch.

Next comes the Kindling. The easiest way is to lay down a row of twigs on your Tinder, and then lay another row across that row – making a grid. You don’t want the Kindling to smoosh your Tinder down too much though so sometimes it helps to lay a couple of sticks or small logs on to opposite sides of the Tinder and lay the first row on top of that. Then make a teepee of Kindling with the Tinder in the middle.

The Fire

Once everything is set up, choose your method of starting it and light up your tinder. If you’ve built it correctly, it’ll burn from the center out in all directions. You may need to gently blow on the fire to get it to catch enough to keep itself going.

From this point, you have to adapt to whatever the fire wants. As the fire grows, you may need to either add more Tinder or open up some airflow. You also may need to lay a few more pieces of Kindling. What you’re looking for is a big red pile of glowy goodness.

Once you have a nice pile of red coals going, you can lay down your smaller Fuel Wood if you don’t already have it on the pile. Make sure the Fuel Wood has access to both the flames and outside air if possible. Don’t do this too quickly or it’ll go out.

Sure, putting together a fire properly may take a bit more time, be a bit of trouble, and overall be a pain in the neck, particularly when you have to wait to enjoy that cold beer until after the fire is roaring, but in the long run building a fire properly is going to save you a lot of trouble, particularly when you don't have to keep lighting the fire over and over again.

Do yourself a favor, take an extra five minutes to do it right, and recommend excellent way to keep your fire going to your friends. You're welcome.

To learn even more about the science of fire construction, take a look at Graywolf Survival.