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A child’s first lessons in fire-building need not involve an actual flame.  Youngsters under the age of seven may be introduced to the basic concepts of lighting a campfire by using food treats.

First, explain to the group that a campfire needs three special things:  It needs tinder, kindling, and fuel.  For those of you who are reading this who are not familiar with camping or wood fires, tinder is small, fine materials such as dried grass, lint, shredded paper or pine needles that will quickly catch fire.  Kindling is a collection of dry twigs that will readily catch fire in the short time that the tinder is alight.  Fuel is the heavier wood that will maintain the blaze once it is going.

Shredded coconut and two sizes of pretzels make good “practice” fires.  Get a good book on camping or scouting and let children look at the illustrations to get ideas for good ways to lay a fire.  When the student has correctly assembled the materials, add candy corn or gelatin slices to represent lighting the fire.  When the children are finished, they can eat their campfire.

This can also be used as an introduction to the basics for older children.

With older children who are going to actually be building a campfire, begin with fire safety.  Explain that the first step is to clear a ten foot circle of ground of any combustible material.  Next, have them dig a shallow pit (six inches will do just fine) and edge it with rocks.  Once this is done, they will need to gather tinder, kindling and fuel–unless, of course, you are in a public park where you have had to bring in fuel.  In that case, the first two steps are probably not going to be happening either. Before the fire building begins, have your students/campers/scouts/children get pails of water and place them strategically around the perimeter of the ten foot circle.  Have them work in groups to build the kind of structure that will allow the tinder to ignite, catching the kindling, and the kindling to then catch the fuel.  Do not give out matches till you have personally inspected their preparatory construction.  It is much easier to rebuild a nest of tinder and dry wood than it is to correct a smoldering campfire that will not light;  it is also much easier to restrain an over-sized nest of combustibles while it is unlit than after it is aflame.

The children’s initial efforts may not ignite.  The most common cause of campfires that do not catch are compacting the tinder till there is no ventilation.  Fires need oxegen to burn, remember. Another cause is piling the kindling directly on the tinder, and squashing it flat.  (See above statement about fire needing air.) Or, finally,  squashing the whole thing with a large chunk of green wood before it has properly alight.  Allowing the children to use chemicals such as charcoal starting fluid is not a good plan.  Combustible liquids have a way of going “whoosh” and light things one did not intend to set afire.

Once the fire has caught, supervise the children carefully to make sure they do not build a raging bonfire.  Small fires will do just fine for this exercise.  

To make it more interesting, the week before the fire-building, have the children create camp stoves from #10 tin cans.  These are created by cutting a fire door in  one side.  this is a simple matter of using tin snips to make two three inch slits about 4 inches apart in the open edge of the can.  Use plier to bend the resulting tab over, leaving an opening.  When the can is place up-side-down on the ground, the flat bottom becomes a cooking surface, and the space allows air to circulate underneath the can.  You will probably want to poke a few addition holes in the can.  The easiest way to do this is to fit the can over a log of wood that is just slightly smaller in diameter than the can.

Once the fires are going well, turn the camp stoves over the little fire, and let the children prepare something simple like soup or an egg on their stove.  When they have finished, have them let their fire die down, dowse the ashes and coals with the water they brought earlier, and stir the ashes well to make sure there are no live embers left.

It takes only a few camping trips before the kids are competent at building their own fire and using it to cook simple food.