h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A few tips for lighting fires. First, unless you know what you are doing, don't. lots of nice places have been burned out by some fool lighting a fire, which promptly gets out of control.
Collect all of your firewood before you start, and keep it handy.
Only collect fallen wood that isn't green. you want a mix of twigs, branches and logs.
If you can find any wrinkled bark on dry wood, peel it off. It makes great firelighters, due to being full of methylated spirits (meths). If you add it as flakes, it works even better.
You can do the rubbing 2 sticks together trick by bowing the top one, but they both have to be hardwood.
To get it to burn, you feed your fire with flakes of dry wood, and dry grass. When this is burning, you can add a few small twigs, then move on to slightly larger twigs, then small branches, then large branches, then only if you need to, the logs.
The other alternative is to build one big fire that will be both stable, and last all night, but this takes lots of wood, and quite a bit of skill.

Dead wood, still attached to trees is a good substitute if all the fallen wood is soaking wet. It should be drier than that lying on the ground. Old Mans Beard lichen makes a good firestarting material.
BCNU - Crescent

The problem with any wood that is still connected to the tree is that you can not be sure that it is dead. If you take wood that looks dead, but leave a wound, the tree can get infected and die. so you should only "take dead wood from a tree" if it is vital that you do so. Also, you don't know how long it has been dead on the tree, so it may still have sap, making it harder to burn.

One thing to consider while your gathering wood is to also gather something to extinguish the fire. Loose dirt, sand, or available water are great for putting out a small campfire safely, and they beat stomping on it with your shoe.

The best method for putting out the fire is to feed it only when needed, and to have a good clear area around it so it can't jump the gap.

If you are going to be building a fire on grass, dig out a sod slightly larger than the size of the fire you want to build, trying to keep it intact (easier said than done sometimes). Keep the sod somewhere, and light your fire within the small pit. Then, when you are finished and the fire is out, replace the sod and stamp it in firmly. This means you aren't burning grass or leaving your campsite in a mess when you leave.

violagirl

You can improve the likelyhood of keeping the sod intact by making the mud you keep with it be 1.5 to 2 inches deep.