Embracing Decay: Fire with Rotten Materials

We have to work with what nature gives us, and right amount of rot can actually be beneficial when it comes to friction fire.

It had been unusually warm and dry over the last week, so I figured I’d try an on-site hand drill. I found lots of promising salmonberry stalks, but the long wet winter had not been kind to them, and I had to sort through a lot of rotten ones to find a dry section with some integrity to it.

In keeping with the rotten materials theme, I pulled some decayed cedar out of the ground for the hearth. Ordinarily, pulling friction fire materials out of the dirt is not recommended, but western red cedar is an especially moisture resistant material, and downed pieces like this can be surprisingly dry and are often right in the sweet spot in terms of decay.

When I first started working on the spindle, I thought I would be able to use it as-is, but as I was trimming up the top, it crumbled between my fingers and kept getting shorter. What I was left with was an uncomfortably short section of questionable material, so I opted to attach it to a maple host spindle with some maple bark.

Materials Used

Spindle Tip: Salmonberry (Rubus spectabilis)
Host Spindle: Big leaf maple (Acer macrophyllum)
Spindle Wrap: Big leaf maple bark
Hearth: Western red cedar (Thuja plicata)
Tinder Bundle: Cedar punkwood, moss & western hemlock twigs

Knife: Mora Stainless Clipper

Music:

Ikson: Reflect
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A26LDRmLP58

Jebase: Relax
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiMHMhqUDYo