Fire Chain & Fishing on the Pacific Northwest Coast

More fun with fire and fish on the coast. The fire chain is a exercise put forth by Iz Turley in his set of Hardwoodman Challenges but the idea is obviously much older. The object is to initially start a fire by friction using found materials, and use that fire to char natural materials without the use of a metal container. By drying and charring materials, the next fire can be started via sparks from percussion based methods (flint and steel), which could be very valuable in a long term situation.

This isn’t an official entry, but I did have fun playing around with the basic concept. The set that I used to get the process rolling was the western red cedar set that I had made the day before and was featured in the previous video.

While birch trees do grow in the Pacific Northwest, I have never found any of them, but I have found birch bark washed up on the beach or more than one occasion. This was one of those days and it burned great despite being at sea for an unknown period of time.

Materials

Bow Drill Stage: Western red cedar hearth and spindle, stone bearing block, kelp bow drill cord.

Flint & Steel Stage: Western Red Cedar punk wood in bull kelp containers

Here are a few links to some other awesome fire chain videos from my friends at Bushcraft USA…

Nature Into Action
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yb7nTihRgGE

Cockeyed Hunter
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFQIWNqyVGA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFQIWNqyVGA

Atlas*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlQYdM2l5tE