How to Start a Fire With Your Bare Hands

Fire is one of the most important

and powerful of the primitive technologies.

It unlocked all sorts of potentials

for us on every level.

My name is Bill Schindler.

I'm a professor of archaeology and anthropology

at Washington College and a primitive technologist

and experimental archaeologist.

Fire probably started as some sort

of a natural phenomenon, like a lightning strike.

A forest fire would have drawn our attention,

we would have seen it and probably

started to realize the benefits of fire over time.

We could probably smell the cooked meat

of the animals that were trapped in that fire

and not only died, but were also cooked

as a result of that.

We certainly would have seen the light,

we would have experienced the warmth

and the first sort of harnessing of fire

was probably making sure that that flame didn't go out.

We could take that fire and transport it somewhere else.

Fire requires just three things:

oxygen, fuel and heat.

The oxygen is already present in the air,

the fuel can be any combination

of things that will actually catch flame

and hold that energy it can be wood,

it can be dung, it can be grasses.

What we really need to focus on here is the heat.

How is the heat generated and where does it come from?

Most primitive and ancestral approaches to fire

rely upon friction to generate that heat.

The first thing that you need to do

if you're going to start a fire from scratch

is to make or find a sharp edge.

If you have a knife that's a no brainer,

but if you don't, if you're in a survival situation

you would have to create that sharp edge

by banging two rocks together to produce

the sharp, durable edge and once you have

that sharp edge you can cut the pieces of wood

that you need and most importantly

modify their shape to suit them to make the fire.

The two most common ways of making a primitive fire

are the hand drill and the bow drill.

Let's start with the most basic form

of starting fire, a hand drill

and this is where that saying,

rubbing two sticks together comes from,

but if you just grab two sticks

and rub them together the only warmth

you'd be generating is your muscles moving

for hours on end, you'd never create a fire.

So in order to make a hand drill fire

you need two pieces, you need a hearth board

and you need a spindle that spins inside

of the hearth board.

Both of these pieces need to be bone dry

and made out of the right materials.

The hearth board needs to be made out of something

that's not resinous, so it can't be from a conifer,

it can't be hemlock or pine or spruce

and it also has to be from a wood that's somewhat soft.

My test for finding out whether or not

this wood is the right type is to actually

put my finger nail in it and see if it leaves a dent behind

if it does it's probably the right material.

Here in the Eastern Woodlands I use wood

from trees like basswood or tulip poplar

or cedar they're absolutely ideal.

The spindle needs to not only be dry,

but it needs to be straight and it

also needs to be somewhat soft.

Quick growing plants like cattail

or horseweed or mulin or even goldenrod work perfect.

On materials like this horseweed

that have all these little knobs,

these knobs are going to tear your hands up

and they need to be removed,

so if you take your stone tool

and hold it perpendicular you can scrape them off

and make it smooth.

Once you've prepared the outside

of the spindle and cut it to length

you have to pay attention to the very end.

This end, the larger end is gonna sit inside

the hearth board, inside the notch you create

and you have to make sure

that it is a very clean cut.

These little frayed pieces are gonna disrupt

the dust pile that you're spending

all this time creating, it's gonna disperse it

and you're not gonna be able to start a fire.

If it's not, take that stone tool

hold it perpendicular and very gently scrape the edge.

Once you've prepared your spindle

the single most important thing

that you have to remember is not to put it down

on the ground, even if you think the ground is dry

it's not and if any moisture gets to the end of it

it's gonna be a failed attempt at making a fire.

So once it's prepared set it aside

somewhere that it's gonna stay dry.

The next thing that you need to do now

is prepare your hearth board.

Your hearth board can be split

out of the proper size stick.

I can split the end, I can carve it down,

but what I'm really looking for

when I'm ready to go is something

that's about a quarter inch or 3/8 of an inch thick.

It needs to be flat on the bottom,

so it can sit there without rocking.

So if you start with a round stick like this

it can be split on both sides

or it can be carved down in order

to achieve those flat surfaces.

After you've achieved that flat surface

we need to create a divot in which

the spindle's gonna sit and spin without hopping out.

The last thing you want to do is spend all your time

and effort so close to making a coal

and then the spindle pops out

and the entire thing has failed

and you have to start all over again.

So I'm gonna pick up this flake that I made

and I'm gonna use it to create that divot.

The nice thing about these stone flakes

is that they have all different surfaces on 'em,

but I can start the divot with this part

and I can widen it with this part.

What I'm gonna do here is not actually

do anything to start the fire, I'm gonna actually

use this spindle for a moment like a drill.

I want to drill into that hole

to ensure that it's seated and it's not gonna pop anywhere.

So very slowly, very deliberately

with some downward force I want to use

this spindle like a drill.

I've created the divot that I need

for this spindle, but you'll notice

I'm also creating the dust that's accumulating

around the outside of this hole.

That dust will never ignite if it's distributed

around the outside of that whole like that.

I need to create a notch where all that dust

will fall in and make one single, solid, powerful hole.

In order to do that I'm gonna take my stone

and carve the notch and what I'm looking for

is just like this one here, it's gonna look like

a slice of pie or a slice of pizza

and the center of that notch should be aiming

for the center of that hole and it should broaden out

on an angle of about 30 degrees or so

by the time it reaches the edge of the wood.

Your final motion after you're creating that notch

should always be downward because you don't want

any of those little fibers of the wood

sticking up, it's gonna disrupt your ability

to form that really nice bundle.

The next thing that I need to do

will determine the success or failure of this fire.

I need to make sure everything

that I need after a coal is created

is at my disposal in the right place.

So the first thing that we need

is a tinder bundle that's gonna take that coal

that burning ember and blow it into a flame.

I love to use cedar bark, the inner bark

of the cedar tree is perfect for this application.

This is what it looks like when I pull it off the tree

and in order to turn it into a tinder bundle

I need to make sure that I increase the surface area,

so that I can allow it to ignite

at a lower temperature and air to come through.

So you can take it and move it like this,

I'm breaking up and separating those fibers.

I need to split the difference between

separating this and allowing a lot of air to get through

and making sure that there's not a big hole

in which the ember will fall through.

Something around like this is perfect

and just like with all my other materials

I don't want to set this on the damp ground.

Once it's done I'm gonna scoop up

anything that's fallen and stick it right back in.

Okay, I'm gonna start this fire

right here in front of me, it has been raining

for four days straight.

This is actually the worst conditions

in which to try to start a hand drill fire.

However, you know one of the things

that I do need to worry about,

which is not as big of an issue now

is the potential for this fire to spread,

but I'm still gonna clear away some of these leaves,

you know I want to get right down

to the bare, mineral soil.

The other thing I need to do before

I even attempt to make my hand drill fire

is to get all of my wood ready,

so what I want to do is take this wood

and sort the size of it and I'll start with the smallest

and go to the biggest.

Starting a hand drill fire in the woods

is an incredibly difficult thing to do,

it requires a lot of skill and a lot of energy.

If you get to the point where you actually get a coal

the last thing you want to do is compromise

your ability to make a fire

by not having all your materials ready.

It is worth the effort to spend five minutes

doing this to your wood.

Okay, I have my wood ready the final two pieces

that I need now that I have everything prepared

in front of me is something to catch the ember.

This piece of birch bark works great

I could use a very dry leaf, a small piece of wood

and I'm gonna use this to put right under

that notch that I created and it's gonna collect the dust.

Once that dust is collected and it turns

into an ember I can take that and pick it up

and very easily transfer it into by tinder bundle.

The final thing that I need is to have

a little piece of a stick ready

because that ember, that dust is gonna work

almost like glue and it's gonna want to stick

to my hearth board and I'm gonna use

this little stick to hold that ember in place

as I remove the hearth board, so I don't disturb it.

You need to make sure that this hearth board

doesn't move, one thing we've done to accomplish that

is we flattened the bottom of the hearth board.

The second thing that we could do

is hold down the sides of it.

If there's somebody else with you

have them hold it, if there's not

you're gonna have to hold it with your foot

or you could take stick like this and kneel on it.

The spindle goes in place and you have to lick your hands

especially on a cold day like this,

my hands actually have to grip this spindle

and the spindle has to move

and you start nice and gentle.

Things to look for:

Make sure that the spindle bottom

isn't popping out of the hole.

Make sure that there's nothing

that's interfering with your hands,

if you feel like your hands are starting to get

a little bit dry, stop right now

and make sure you lick 'em again.

I want to make sure that I'm drying out that board,

starting to heat it up, starting to generate

the dust and I can do that by moving very, very slowly.

The other thing I need to make sure

that I'm doing is using my entire hand,

every time that I spin my hands

I'm rotating this spindle and it's generating heat and dust,

as soon as I stop it cools down

and I go back the other way.

If I use my entire hand fingertip to palm

I'm getting more rotations before it cools down.

The other thing you'll notice is if

you're generating downward pressure,

which you should be you're hands are slowly

gonna move down the shaft, when you get to the bottom

you're gonna stop, hold it with one hand,

continue to exert downward pressure,

grab the top with the other

continue to exert downward pressure

and reposition your hands to the top and continue again.

This may take more than one go,

but I would love to get it all in one,

so that would be awesome.

Son of a [beep] spindle broke.

Let me try this way out.

So you don't want this hearth board to move,

so the easiest way to do that is with the side of your foot.

All right so it's cold, it's damp

my hands are dry though and I'm tired

from trying to do this the best thing

that I can do right now is take a quick break.

I'm gonna take off this shirt.

This is much better to show

and my hands are doing the entire...

I got it.

Okay, we have the coal.

We have to use this stick keep the coal intact

and we're gonna let this coal grow.

The more this coal grows the stronger it gets

and I'm gonna need all that strength

to transfer this really weak coal

into this tinder bundle.

My job is to keep it in one place,

in one ball if possible when I transfer it.

I'm blowing very gently to provide the oxygen.

I'm holding it on the bottom because

the flames are gonna go up.

And we have flame.

I'll put this on the ground.

I do not have a fire yet all I have is a flame.

I'm gonna take my smallest pieces of wood

and lay them on top.

Laying these sticks on top naturally form a teepee

that's the shape it takes.

We're starting to get some of the smaller stuff lit.

Right here the energy in that system is building,

it's gone from tinder to something bigger,

which means it's getting stronger

and slowly I'm gonna build the size of the sticks up.

Then I'm done, that's all I need to do.

A bow drill is sort of a hand drill on steroids

and a bow drill fire requires both a hearth board

and a spindle, but it also requires

a bow which instead of your hands is used

to spin the spindle.

The advantage to that is that when you're

using your hands to generate the heat,

to spin the spindle you only have

the length of your hand to spin it

until it stops for a moment and goes the other way

and that pause for that split second

allows this system to cool down.

So if you can extend that distance

that you spin that spindle without having to stop

and reverse the direction, it's an incredible advantage.

So if you take a bow, which is essentially

a stick with a string on it

and wrap it around that spindle

you have the entire length of that string

to go in one direction without having to stop

and move in the other direction.

The other part of the bow drill,

which provides an advantage is a handpiece

and that handpiece sits on top

of the spindle and provides the downward pressure,

so immediately by adding the bow

and the handhold you're increasing the speed,

you're increasing the amount of rotations

before you stop and let it cool down

and reverse direction and you're increasing the pressure.

It's a lot easier to make that fire

and a lot quicker often to make that fire.

So to make a bow drill you need to make a bow,

this curved piece of wood works great,

but you can actually use almost any piece of wood

as long as you attach the spindle on the right way

so it's on the outside of the string

even a straight piece of wood will work fine.

But what you really need to do

to make this successful is make a string

that wraps around the spindle

and there's a number of different ways to do this,

if you're in a survival situation

and you're wearing shoes or boots with laces

you can obviously use the laces,

but other options include things like

natural plant fibers like this dogbane here,

which produces incredible fibers.

You can extract these fibers and twist those fibers

into a really strong piece of cordage.

The problem is there's so much pressure

and friction on this entire system

that the natural vegetable fibers

wear out rather quickly.

My favorite way to make a bow drill string

is actually to use rawhide or to use leather,

this is a piece of brain-tanned deerskin

and I'm gonna show you how to quickly make a string

that'll not only make this fire successful,

but you can use for successful fires into the future.

I can take this razor-sharp flake

and use it to cut this piece of leather

in a spiral pattern and I can make

a really long string out of it.

I'm gonna fold it over itself and I'm gonna

make a two ply cordage out of it,

which is gonna more than double it's strength,

it's also gonna make this string more round

which is gonna make it more successful for me

and it's also gonna make a loop on the end

which will allow me to attach it very easily to the bow,

so this is gonna be a two-ply cordage

and in fact this is the way that all ropes used to be made.

I twist in opposite directions

just like this and twist until it kinks on itself

and I'm gonna hold that end.

All that I'm doing is I'm taking

both of these twisting them in the same direction

and then twisting them back around one another

in the opposite direction and it's gonna hold it tight

and I'm gonna go right down the line.

Twist and reverse, twist and reverse.

Here's the completed piece of cordage

and what I'm able to do is use that loop

and send it right through and I'm gonna stick this

right on the end of my bow.

I've made a small little notch here that'll catch it.

I'm gonna pull that down to this other notch

give it a little bit of slack,

so it'll wrap around the spindle,

wrap it around a few times.

This is my completed bow and string.

This is the spindle that I use

for the bow drill fire, it's shorter

than the hand drill spindle and it's also bigger around.

This end needs to be pointed, this is the end that's up

and fits in the handpiece, if this is pointed

there's less surface contact and there's less energy loss

and I can shape that again with this rock.

The bottom end needs to be flat or as flat as possible.

The reason I'm making it flat is because

I want that broad flat surface

against the broad flat surface

of the hearth board and there's more surface area,

there's more contact, there's more friction

and there's more heat.

The only other piece of the bow drill set

that you need is the handle,

this handle needs to be as frictionless as possible,

which means it should be made out of a hard material.

It can be made out of a strong,

hard piece of wood like this osage orange,

it can be made out of a shell,

a hard bone or even a rock that had a divot in it.

So I need to create this divot

inside of this handpiece so it can accept

the far end of the spindle.

If I'm making this on a rock I can take another rock

and peck the hole into it.

If I'm making it on this piece of wood

I can use my flake and twist it just like this

to create this hole.

Now I'm gonna make that coal with a bow drill.

The similarities between a hand drill

and a bow drill are that they both have a hearth board

and they both have a spindle,

but the difference is that I'm gonna exert

my pressure using a handhold on top of the spindle

and I'm gonna rotate that spindle using a bow

instead of just my hands.

The advantage here is that that spindle

can travel the entire length of the string

of the bow without stopping and cooling down

as it reverses direction.

The advantage to the handhold is that

I can exert a lot more pressure

and I can use a lot shorter spindle.

Positioning here is really important

the first thing I'm gonna do just like

with the hand drill is put something

underneath the hearth board to catch the ember.

The second thing I'm gonna do is position my body

so everything's locked in place

and nothing is moving around

and I'm gonna take my left hand.

Which is the hand that's holding the top of the spindle

and lock it in around this knee and into my shin

and just like with the hand drill

when I move this bow I also want to

reduce the friction on the string,

so you see if I tilt this bow a little bit

it separates those strings and if I do that

that means they're not rubbing against each other

and my string is gonna last a lot longer.

So I tilt it down just a little bit,

but I'm still moving my right hand parallel to the ground.

Start out nice and slow, but all of a sudden

you can see there's smoke faster

than there was with the hand drill.

Okay, I need to stop now and remove something

because what happened is that it's slipping out

because there's this split in the wood,

so I'm gonna take two seconds

and I'm gonna make another notch real quick,

so that my spindle doesn't pop out.

You see there's smoke coming

from the dust pile so I'm gonna take this stick,

put it into the back, hold the ember in place

and remove the hearth board.

This ember is what I'm gonna use

to transfer to my tinder bundle

and then blow that into a flame and there's my coal.

The way you build your fire is largely influenced

by what you're trying to accomplish.

If you want light or heat my go to fire

is a by default teepee fire,

if you take a burning tinder bundle

put it on the ground and slowly begin

to lay increasing sizes of wood on top of it

it naturally forms a teepee.

If you want a fire for light you want large flames,

you have wood that is organized in such a way

that there's a lot of air between it

and a lot of air between that wood

allows for not only introduction

of a lot of oxygen, but there's a lot of

individual pieces of wood that are acting

like individual pieces of wood

and they're all burning up extremely quickly

and that's generating a lot of heat

and a lot of light, it's not generating a lot of coals.

In most situations when you want a fire for cooking

you want a good bed of coals.

I've found the best way to build a fire

to cook with is using the parallel log method.

This method is something I learned

while living with the hods in Tanzania,

what they explained to me this accomplished

was it created a bed of coals in the quickest way possible.

So they would start off the same way

they'd begin to start the fire,

they'd lay sticks on top of it,

it would superficially look like a teepee

until it got going and then they'd lay

all their logs down on top of one another

in a parallel fashion and they oriented

the direction of the logs with the direction of the wind,

so the winds coming up through the middle.

You can only do this once you've already

built up enough coals to rearrange the fire.

This is an ideal fire lay to build up

the largest bed of coals as quickly as possible

and the reason is because I've actually

closed down that air gap.

I'm laying these logs in close enough,

so close that instead of burning up in huge flames

they actually burn a little bit more slowly

and produce those coals, but I do have

just enough of an air gap and allow the wind

to blow through between these that it's staying lit.

I've built up this incredible bed of coals

in no time using the parallel fire method.

In order to cook on this fire

I need to spread these coals out,

gets a nice hot bed of coals and in this spot

over here I'm gonna put the meat

directly on top of the coals.

Okay, so the meats done.

Even though you may never find yourself

in a survival situation I firmly believe

that learning and practicing these primitive skills

are an essential part of connecting

with your past, your environment

and everything that it means to be human.