Splitwood Log Cabin Fire Lay

The Log Cabin Fire Lay is one of the most useful fire lays to master when it comes to fire skills. I use this fire lay mostly for getting a fast bead of hot coals, especially when cooking. While this fire lay can be used for boiling it is not best suited (the next fire lay in this series will be much better for boiling). I tend to use this fire lay most often as I said about when I want to cook over coals or I need a large amount of coals for another task (i.e. making a hot bed, making a star fire, etc.). You will notice that there is hardly any smoke with this fire and that is because it is a split hardwood one stick fire and the log was fairly dry. This fire burns extremely fast and hot due to the amount of air that can get to the fire and also the amount of surface area of the fuel (larger split wood) exposed to the flame, so if you need a fire in a hurry this fire lay is good for that application. The video below (click on the picture or the play button and the video will start automatically. This video covers everything from processing the tinder to a sustainable fire.

Need Additional Help Getting Your Fire Started? Try a few of these methods:  Dryer Lint Tinder Bundle  (LINK); Gorilla Tape Tinder Bundle (LINK); Rub Cloth (LINK); Dragon Ball Fire Starters (LINK); Char Cloth (LINK); Solar Ignition (LINK); One Stick Fire (LINK); Fire Pad (LINK); DIY Fire Starter: Cotton & Petroleum Jelly Modification  (LINK); Camp Fire vs. Survival Fire vs. Cooking Fire (LINK); Building a Sustainable Fire In Wet Conditions (LINK); Split Match Trick (LINK); Survival Resources 4x Fresnel Magnifier (LINK); Fatwood Fire (LINK); Evolution of My Pocket Fire Kit (LINK); Split Wood Fires: Using Your Knife As A Spokeshave (LINK); Cattail Fluff Used as Flash Tinder (LINK); Wetfire Tinder (LINK); Twig Bundle Fire (LINK);What I like to Use For Tinder Bundle Materials (LINK); Fritos Tinder Bundle (LINK).

Don't Have A Fire Kit? Buy One By Clicking Below: 

Process In Pictures:

1)  Process your tinder. In this case I used two types of tinder inner bark scrapings and fine shavings.

2) Above is a little more than a baseball cap size tinder bundle of shavings with inner bark scrapings added to the top. This was a harder wood so I added the scrapings, If I were using pine or other resinous or soft woods the scrapings could be skipped and you could probably get away with using just feather sticks.

3) My split wood fire lay is separated into six categories... while I may not use each type for each fire lay I still start with the same setup each time: 1) Inner bark scrapings (or tinder bundle); 2) shavings (roughly a baseball size hat full); 3) Pinky or smaller size (smalls); 4) Thumb size; 5) Three finger size; 6) Wrist size or bigger for fuel. For this fire lay I only need to use tinder material, smalls and the three finger size to get a decent amount of coals. if you need to cook any longer than an hour or so then throw on about three fuel size sticks as well.

4) The first step is to use your ferro rod (or lighter if you choose) to light the makeshift tinder bundle. It took a few too many strikes for my liking but I guess that's what I get for using my smaller ferro rod.

5) Once you get the tinder bundle to take begin feeding it small shavings from the side of the bundle until you have a decent size flame.

6) Once you have decent involvement of your tinder material begin to add small sticks to your fire leaning them against the rear brace for increase airflow and material exposure to the flame.

7) When your smalls are involved in fire move a second brace into place up against the opposite side of the fire and begin to alternatively stack layers of the thumb or three finger size sticks across both braces as shown below. 

8) Within just a few minutes your should have an easily sustainable fire

Conclusions:

This particular fire lay is one of my stays for split-wood fires. I seem to always use this method when I'm getting ready to cook a few fish or make a hot bed (basically you make your fire where you are going to sleep and then bury the huge pile of coals and then go to sleep like your laying on a heating pad- two of these fire lays work great when making this type of sleeping arrangement. throw a large layer of moss of pine bows over you and it will be a very warm night without a sleep system). I will be showing several other fire lays in this series, but this is one of the best to master especially if you are an avid fisherman like me and like to eat your catch right along the river. All you need is a knife/axe/hatchet (Learn What Properties to look for in a survival knife here- LINK) and a quasi dry log or large stick and about 15 minutes of preparation time to split your fire lay and prepare your tinder material.

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