How to Build a Fire With Your Kids in 5 Minutes

My oldest boy wanted to learn how to build a fire from the US Air Force Survival Handbook book. We built a Tepee fire on Saturday afternoon in the hot August sun.

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Step By Step Fire Building Process

The Survival handbook offers more than nine different ways to build a fire. The book addresses different scenarios that you might encounter and offers options for starting a fire.

Building a Keyhole Fire

Basic Tools

Axe, knife, magnesium fire starter and some lint.

Starting the Keyhole Fire

Managing the Keyhole Fire

Placing the Coals

Building the Tepee Fire

My son wanted to build a Tepee fire because it looked cool. He also watched some Outdoor Boys episodes on YouTube and wanted to make campfires.

The Tepee fire is also one of the easiest ways to start a fire if you need one quickly.

The Survival Handbook has a ton of detailed black-and-white images.

I chopped some smaller pieces of wood for him. Then, he started building his Tepee. This was tricky because it fell over several times, and he had to restart.

Lessons learned: Build a Tepee with shorter wood pieces. That way, they stack easier together.

The Tepee Structure is Complete

He built the Tepee structure with the log cabin wood in the center. He added some starter that we would eventually light on fire. You can see the smaller Tepee fire he had built in the background. But we opted for the bigger one.

Lessons learned: We did not have enough starter and had to grab more later.

Ring the Fire with Rocks

When you ring the fire with rocks, do not use coal, limestone, sandstone, or rocks submerged in water. The heat may cause those types of stones to explode and cause injury.

Lessons learned: He had grabbed smaller stones to ring his fire. Then, he had to find much bigger ones to contain the fire.

The Result

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Building a fire is hard work. Afterward, he had time to enjoy a Costco lunch, sit back, and enjoy his fire. I would encourage everyone to get outdoors and do something with their kids.

If we start when they are young, it will all be expected of them when they are older.

Stay well, brothers.

~ FA