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Building a campfire sounds simple. What if you are in the wilderness and the wood is wet and it is raining. What do you do then?

Here are a few tips on starting camp fires and maintaining them.

Plan ahead - Save dryer lint to use a tinder for starting fires. Pack some long burning candles. These are much better than matches or a lighter. They generate a lot of heat and last a long time.

If you are caught out in the "boonies" and don't have either of these and the wood is wet, look for standing, dead trees. Peel the bark away and strip some of the cambium away that is dry and use this for tinder. When you start a fire, have small,dry twigs and wood at hand before igniting your tinder. As soon as the tinder it ignited, add small twigs slowly. Add these in the shape of a small tee-pee. This will allow a good air flow to feed oxygen to the fire. Keep adding larger twigs and limbs gradually until you can place large pieces on wood on the fire. By this time, there should be enough heat generated to dry the bigger wood as it burns and stack some more nearby to begin drying.

If it is dry when you set up camp, secure enough wood for several fires and cover with plastic or tarp to keep it dry. You will be assured of fuel for heat and food preparation.

Economical fire starters can be made from cotton balls, petroleum jelly and aluminum foil. Saturate cotton balls with petroleum jelly (Vaseline) and place on a piece of foil. Flatten the cotton ball and fold it in the foil and crimp the edges to keep it sealed tightly. When you need to start a fire, cut an "X" in one of the flat sides of the foil. Pull out a few strands of the impregnated cotton ball for a wick. Ignite this with your fire source and it will burn from 30 to 60 minutes and ignite your wood easily.

A fire can be started with one of the magnesium blocks that has a flint surface on one edge. Shave off some small pieces of the magnesium onto your tinder. Strike the flint with your knife blade and sparks will ignite the magnesium and the cotton ball easily. This will work even in wet conditions. I don't like to dull my knife blade, so I pack a couple of short pieces of hacksaw blade that work better than the knife blade. This will generate a tremendously hot spark for starting a fire.

If you have an emergency or just want to start a fire in the primitive way, you can use flint rock and steel or construct a simple bow drill.

The bow is simple to construct with string and a small sapling. The fire board is a little more

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