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So it turns out I’m Corsican after all. 

Yes, you guessed it.  I made fire!

I went out to the Cave of Wonder (my Uncle’s garage, where has has pretty much anything and everything you might need for anything) looking for an axe, so I could maybe chop up some of the blocks of wood I have into smaller pieces.

I couldn’t find the axe (I’m sure it’s there, but only he knows where everything is and I didn’t want to disturb whatever sense of order is in there), so I was standing by our woodpile, likely looking a little forlorn… when my Aunt came walking up.

Qu’est que tu fait?

(Which, loosely translated into English means, "You dumbass, I heard you couldn’t make a fire. Now you’re standing here looking at your wood? What? You think it’s going to carry itself into your fireplace and light itself on fire?  I’ll show your sorry Canadian butt how to make a fire. Here, follow me. )

So she leads me back into the Cave of Wonder, where there is secret stash (I had never seen it during my cave exploring outings) of dry sticks and twigs.  Actually, a bag of the stuff. My aunt points to this bag and says, "You need this.  Moron."  OK, she said it in French, but I’m pretty sure that’s what she said.

Ah ha! That is the secret to making a fire. Dry wood.  And the right type.  And small.  Ros, you were right…  :)

So I went for a walk.  Up a ways, past the little cottages and houses and into a big wooded area, where I figured there are trees there must be wood. 

Did you know that the floor of the woods is literally covered with twigs and broken pieces of branches?  I guess I never noticed this before.  My mountaineering experience is mostly in the high mountains, and I have to pack fuel for the stove.  There’s no trees above the treeline, and I don’t particularily like forests much.  I suppose I never really noticed all the stuff on the ground.

I packed my big bag (one of the corsican "recycle" bags), full of little twigs and what I felt would make good firestarter.  Took me only about 45 minutes, which isn’t bad.  My exercise for the week, so I killed two birds with one stone there. Ya for me!

Anyway, I get back to our place and show Cara my treasure.  She is suitably impressed, although she does notice that my bag of wood is rather wet. Sure, makes sense, after all it’s been raining for the last few days. 

Then my Aunt knocks on the door.  My Uncle is going to be delayed (snow on the road in the mountains, etc), so she’s here to show me how to start a fire. 

She brought her bag of twigs with her.

I showed her my own bag of freshly gathered wood and twigs, and she said, "Non, pas sec".  Which translated roughly means, "You really are a dumb canadian immigrant, aren’t you? The twigs must be dry.  Dry!  Can you hear me.  DRY!"

Then she shows me the secret. 

Well, first she validated my theory that the problem was the wood.  It seems my wood is not good wood for burning in a fireplace. So she went out and got a few choice peices of her own wood.  (Conveniently stacked right next to mine.  Or rather, my wood is stacked next to hers.)

She placed a few crumpled up bunches of newspaper on the bottom layer, then a whole heap of *dry* twigs on top, and then a small/medium log on top of that.

Then she lit it up with matches.

And she showed me how the fireplace works.  You see, it’s an insert.. which is a special type of fireplace, specifically designed to work with fire. You can use it to manage your fire, by adjusting various sliders to limit airflow into the fire area.

She closed the fireplace door, and *immediately* the burning paper just went crazy and rapidly started to be consuming by fire.  Apparently, the fireplace really doesn’t work too well with the door wide open… which is how I was trying to do it.  Immediately, I realized that yesterday during my fire starting attempts, if I had just shut the door and opened the air-vents.. all would have been well.  My mistake was keeping the door open and not understanding the airflow issue. Instead of practically knocking myself out with blowing, I should have realized the fireplace could do this for me, with heat-induced air circulation. How snazzy is that?!

Then the fire went out.  Well, the paper stopped burning. 

She turned a little sheepishly to me and told me that, usually, she didn’t start the fires.. it was Dominique who did it.  He is the fire expert, she says.  She’s just lighting this fire because he’s delayed and she knows Cara is cold, etc… 

She tries a few times to get the fire going, with new crumples of paper.. but it doesn’t work.  Finally, she stands up and tells me that we’ll have to wait until Dominique is home. No problem.  I’m reasonably confident that, now I understand how it works, I can get a fire going.

And I did.

After a brief inspection of the air-flow system, I figured out how it works.  It’s really simple, actually. The grill under the fire area is where the air comes out, so if you start your fire there (right in the middle), with lots of small twigs that will catch quickly… you only really need a few peices of paper to get it going. 

The fire gods, satisfied in my progress of study, once again deemed me worthy, and blessed me with fire. My sacrifice of pride was accepted.

So now you can all stop worrying about how cold Cara says she is.  The fire warmed up our place to a nice 18.9 degrees.  Not too hot, but not cold. Just perfect. 

Now.. couple of questions for you fire-people out there. (Corrie/Dawn, Ros, Oksana!)

1) Do you keep your fire going all night and day long?  Or do you let it die after you go to bed, and then start it again the next evening? 

2) Wood. How much wood is "normal" to use?  I think our fireplace insert has a leaky front window, because I can hear air whistling through the spaces.  I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to be air-tight if I close off *all* the air-vents, but in our case.. air still gets through.. and so I think the wood is burning faster then normal.  Should I fix that?  (ie: scrap off the old seal junk and then buy some new sealer? I think it’s like a white fluffy sort of barrier thing.)

3) Any tips/tricks/suggestions on fire stuff in general?  I haven’t (yet) gone to the internet to do some research on using fire to heat a house (yes, I’m a geek!), but if you’d like to share your own experience and suggestions… well, I won’t pay you for it.. but consider me thankful.  :)