Nothing Beats a Wood Fire for Warmth

Nothing beats a wood fire for warmth, particularly when the embers build up into a radiant winking bed of orange.? Toss on another couple of logs, leaving room for airflow, and watch them burst into cheery flames.? The heat radiates and the flames provide a mesmerizing dance.? I’ve spent countless hours watching such flames around campfires, bonfires, and fireplaces while my mind wandered.?

Often those settings involved conversation facilitated by the warmth of the fire and the flicker of the flames.? We lose ourselves, or at least lose inhibitions, in the common contemplation.? Great conversation follows as well as great shared silences.? Of course, I’ve also contemplated the fire on my own or enjoyed a great book or even a digital stream by its warm glow.?

Wood fire provides its own fit for TV show entertainment (remember that the broadcast of the Yule Log had a 20 year run in the ‘60s and ‘80s with a revival now running since 2001).? I have often thought about countless people doing nothing more than sitting around a fire and watching the flames as entertainment at the end of a long day, in addition to facilitating survival until morning.

Wood fire demands a measure of skill.? One must manage the escalation from spark and tinder through twig and branch to blazing log.? Depending on conditions (as in a rainy, cold, and windy camp), one must nurture the fire with the patience of a parent.? Provide the right fuel at the right time, taking care to escalate bit by bit as the fire matures.? Make sure it has air flow with proper structure.? As needed, give your own breath to fan its flame, almost as if sharing your own spirit to sustain and build it.? Shelter it from errant winds that would snuff it out, or from the downpour that would quench it.? Build the heat and let the embers grow as a reservoir of that heat, ready to burst the next piece of fuel into warming entrancing flame.? Of course, conditions and pressure to succeed vary (from survival to simply putting a cheery flame ablaze in a fireplace under the judging eye of family), but the basic skill remains the same.

Wood fire demands preparation.? On a basic level one needs the place in which to contain the fire.? Firepits and their remains tell us much about human history, so we know that humans have made such preparation since time immemorable.? Chimneys, ovens, and even simple stone fire rings tend to be lasting signs of human presence.? And, whether for a night or a season, one needs to put together the starter, kindling, and fuel in sufficient stores to last or else run out and go cold.

Wood fire demands tending.? Left unattended the fire can go out, depriving those around it of light and warmth.? Left unattended, the fire can blaze out of control, destroying those around it in the tragedy of a housefire, a city fire (remember Mrs. O’Leary’s cow?), or a blaze that consumes thousands of acres.

I contemplate these things on a cold January night in the middle of a record snowstorm with a warm fireplace.? We use wood fire for a meaningful amount of heat in our old farmhouse.? For sure, we have more conventional heating, but most nights during the winter we have a fire going that shares the duty and keeps the bills down.? I remember well a cold week at a different house in the suburbs when a bitter winter storm knocked out all power, leaving us with only the fireplace to heat the whole house.? We kept the fire going and snuggled around it.? The ambient heat kept us warm enough and we survived just fine.? And that’s part of the beauty of the fire: we provide it on our own without the electrical grid, oil delivery truck, or gas pipeline.

That does not mean that the wood fire comes at no price.? We have a rhythm on the farm.? When the summer demands of farming and upkeep wane, we fell and buck dead trees for fire wood.? If you have not felled a tree, I highly recommend the experience.? The process involves careful assessment of the tree and which way it will come down.? If you have had a tree fall on a house, a car, or just upon open ground you’ll appreciate the release of kinetic energy that results.? Decades, or even centuries, of stored energy in the form of the tree growing toward the sun in defiance of gravity release their hold as the tree plummets to the ground, flattening everything in its path and plunging branches deep into the ground.? I recommend careful consideration of wind conditions, slope, obstructions, and escape route before taking down a tree.? Whether from cowardice, wisdom, or sheer luck, I have avoided being squashed by a falling tree and I’d like to keep it that way.

Whether felled or fallen, as fallen trees from wind and rain require attention, one must then buck the tree.? Bucking involves cutting off the branches and limbs to reduce the tree to more or less straight lines of timber that can be used to make things.? In our case, we use as much as possible.? Leafy branches provide forage for goats.? Limbs 4 inches or less go to the pile for chipping into mulch during the spring.? We cut larger branches and trunks into approximately 18 inch sections for firewood.? When time permits, we’ll mill truly memorable trunks (e.g. gnarled maple with amazing contours shaped by decades, or centuries, of weather) into slabs for sale or conversion to live edge mantles, bars, or tables.?

All of this, which implies many hours of work, requires the right tools and equipment.? I have great admiration for those in the past who used axes, hand saws, and animals to fell, cut, and haul wood for fire.? Fortunately, for felling and cutting the chain saw does amazing work.? Chain saws require their own maintenance, including the right mix of fuel, plenty of bar/chain lube, clean filters, a properly cleaned/balanced carburetor, bar tensioning, and (perhaps most importantly) a sharp chain.? A properly prepared chain saw cuts through wood like the proverbial hot knife through butter, with the pleasing smell of wood chips and oil.? Wielding a chain saw for hours does put a strain on arms, shoulders, and thighs, but I count that as nothing compared to swinging an ax or sawing away with hand tools.

As to the hauling, I thank God and Froelich for the invention of the tractor.? I hook mine up to a big trailer with about 300 square feet of surface area.? The tractor hauls the trailer without complaint to the pile of logs, branches, and detritus around the felled (or fallen) tree.? We load tons of logs and branches onto it, to be hauled away to their respective locations (logs under the eaves of the barn, branches to the pile for mulching, and leafy greens for goats).

And then we let the logs dry.? Newly cut wood has a high moisture content, which will interfere with clean burning.? Good firewood requires a season or two of calendar time to dry out.? Accordingly, stacks of logs wait their turn for splitting under the eaves of the barn.

And then comes splitting time.? A whole log will burn, given enough time and high temperature.? But, surface area to mass determines the energy released by a piece of wood on the fire as a function of time.? Consider a small piece of kindling, with plenty of surface area as a function of mass.? It will quickly explode into flame with the prompting of a small fire.? Similarly, the pieces of a large log split into sections will give up their energy more rapidly than the large log itself.? Thus, we split firewood into burnable sections.

If you have not actually split firewood with an ax or maul, I highly recommend that experience as much as felling a tree.? One sets a log on its end and aims the ax toward the mid point of the circle presented accordingly and swings down.? A good swing aligns all the power of the body, from legs through hips and stomach (the “core” I am told), to shoulders, arms, and wrists to concentrate that power on the thin edge of the ax.? Amazingly, the log splits in twain under a well aimed blow upon the natural grain of the wood.? One can hardly believe it as the formidable log simply falls into two pieces.

The immense gratification of splitting logs by hand aside, one would be hard-pressed to put enough wood away for the winter by this technique if one has any other demands on one’s time.? ?So, we use a gas powered hydraulic wood splitter to speed up this chore.? The tool concentrates 25 tons on its leading edge, which renders massive logs helpless under its force.? We set it up and put it to work as one log after another, and sections of each, split under its force.? Then, we pile up the resulting sections under the eaves of the barn, giving us stacks and stacks of wood ready for burning.

So, that is my story of wood fire: skill, preparation, tending, and the work to generate the fuel.? What does that have to do with anything?

I would submit that building a wood fire should be taught to every child.? As I just said, it involves skill, preparation, tending, and the work to generate the fuel ahead of time.? One cannot simply flip a switch to start a wood fire.? Further, it has to do with self-sufficiency.? A person who can build a fire can, among other things, keep warm, have light in the darkness, cook food, deter predators, and boil water for safe drinking.? In other words, fire has a lot to do with the basics of maintaining life.?

At the same time, there is something primeval about wood fire, rooted deeply in our identity as human beings.? Why was Prometheus chained and punished?? Because he gave mankind the secret of fire, which made us mankind.? According to Greek myth, their gods saw that as a trespass against their prerogatives, and that should tell us something about the nature of fire.? Why did the true God appear to Moses out of a burning bush?? Why did that same God demand sacrifice in the form of burnt offerings?? Why did that same God proceed the Israelites as a pillar of flame?? Quite simply, we recognize the power of the divine and our nature, as created beings, in fire.? Put in terms of mere archeology: why does human settlement and advancement in every place and time rely on the capacity to generate fire?? Put in the context of technological advance, wood fire comprises the most basic building block in the storage, release and use of energy upon which all innovation relies.? In short, the wood fire has a deep connection to our identity as humans and to our social-cultural evolution as an entire species.

No doubt many people would excoriate me for saying so in these days of obsession with carbon emissions, but I commend a functional wood burning fireplace as an essential element of the home.? I suggest that a wood fireplace reminds us of our identity as humans.? I suggest that having that fireplace reminds us of the fact that we can provide the basic necessities of life for ourselves when required to do so.? I suggest that practicing the disciplines around wood fire, at least from time to time, reminds us about the virtues of skill, preparation, tending, and physical labor.? Finally, I suggest that nothing better facilitates conversation, cheer, and introspection (all of which are lacking in our increasingly virtual culture) than a good wood fire.

Cheers!