Fast Fire Starting Tip

Hey, Dirt Farmer Jay here from DirtFarmerJay.com. If you've ever watched some of our videos where I'm in the shop here, you know that there's a fireplace or a wood burning stove in the background. And that's not a prop, that's a real thing. It's cold right now where we live and we really count on this stove to heat our shop. So, whenever I come out to light a fire, I want to light it quickly and efficiently. Now sure, I can do it with paper, with kindling, and many times I do, but I found a great product that I think you're going to like that has really made my life easier. It is the Chefco Fire Starts or Easy Fire. This is a great little product that I really like to use. Here's why I like them so much. Number one, they start really quickly. They're easy to light. Number two, they don't smoke when you do light them because they're compressed cedar shavings along with a highly refined oil, so there's no black smoke that comes off them. Number three, the economics are pretty darn good. When you buy them, they are in pucks like this. And you can't see them on camera because it's just slightly impressed, but right there is a line which allows you to divide each one of these pucks, and there's 36 in a box, into fourths equaling 144 starts. So when you get a box of these, they're ready to roll. Now, what do you need here just to make good use of them? Let me give you a couple tips. Number one, because they're individually wrapped like this to keep them dry, when you take them apart, they're going to fall apart a little bit and shed a bit. So the thing you should do right off is just keep a plastic bag, maybe you want a Ziploc bag, something like that, that when you go to use them and pull off this wrapper, you've got a way to store these inside the bag. So what I do is I go ahead and cut them into quarters just on my bandsaw. So these are little shapes here, and when they're cut like this and they're a bag, they're great for backpacking, if you're going to go out and start something in your volcano stove or something like that, this is a great way to do it. Another reason I really do like these is they have a good burn time, they really burn hot and fast. It doesn't take much to get them started, but it allows you to very quickly get a flame going that you can add other kindling onto it. This is not a substitute for good fire building, it's just a great assist and gets things going faster. Okay, let's see what we get. You can see the fire starts again, boy, not bad, huh? Quick burn, burns real easy, burns uphill. What I mean, see it's burning on the top, I can hold it on the bottom. I'm going to go ahead and place it down here in the firebox of the stove, just like that. And notice that I've got an iron grate down there to cast iron. I'd always recommend that over one of the softer iron ones. This one's had many seasons. But notice as that's just sitting there burning, it's really starting to cover the surface pretty quickly. And at this point, you can just simply add on your normal kindling over the top, making sure not to smother it. So what I like to do is kind of build a little bit of a bridge on both sides, actually, like that, giving a place for that flame to come up through the middle. We'll see how fast we get a nice fire burning in here and get this warmed up in here. So notice that I split the wood in advance, so I had good dry pieces of wood there ready to go. Within just a few minutes, that'll really take off. So let's see how this fire's doing. It's been burning less than two minutes. Let's just take a look. Well, there you go. That fire's burning hot enough that I can start adding on other pieces. And in no time at all, I'm going to have a rip-warring fire in here. I'll be able to put on a cup of hot coffee sitting on the top there. The shop will warm up, and it'll be a great day to do some work in the shop. I hope that you found this helpful. If you're interested in getting this product, we've provided you a link. You can find it right on Amazon. Thanks for watching today. We look forward to seeing you again in the near future.