(VIDEO) He Built a Fire in a Hole. Now Watch and See Why a Dakota Fire Hole is One of the Most Clever Survival Hacks!

Dakota fire hole

There's a myriad of ways to build a fire in a survival situation. Most methods simply have you build a fire above ground, feeding the sticks into the flames as you dart around trying to find that elusive spot outside the smoke in which you can breathe for a few moments.

Of course, you could use a different method. The Dakota fire hole was a method used by Native Americans to hide their cooking fires from their enemies. They emit no smoke and leave a very little trace that there was ever a fire in the first place.

You may be wondering how you can build a fire underground. How will it get oxygen? Won't it suffocate the flames? These are all very good questions.

Check out the next page to learn just how ingenious a fire building method this is.

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18 Comments

  1. Mike Long said:

    you put an upside down fire in the hole and your good to cook for a decent bit of time without have to feed the fire.

  2. John D. Wolfskill said:

    In the picture, the fire is too big, part of the idea behind a Dakota Pit Fire is stealth, so small fire that you can not see from more than like 10-15 foot away. . . .

  3. Larry Sheldon said:

    There are natural tubes like that in the Panamints that we used for cooking fires a long time ago.

  4. Cliff Caro said:

    In the movie “Dances with Wolves” a Pawnee warrior said “Only a White man would build a fire where everyone could see it” I guess in the post Apocalypse this advice could come in handy indeed.

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