Playing with Fire

Managing your camp fire cooking heat source.

Last year at the XJ list fall crawl, I learned some great fire management skills from a guy with the ironic nickname of Frosty.

In order to move around hot logs, he used a pair of metal chopsticks. Using these tongs, he could move a heavy hot log anywhere in the fire pit he wanted to. This tool allowed him to concentrate the heat in one area or spread it out as needed for best cooking.

To make your our frosty fire chopsticks, go to a local hardware store and pick up a stick of half inch thin wall conduit. It usually comes in ten foot sections. Cut it into three sections just over three feet long. Since our recent survey showed most readers have only two arms, one of your three poles will be a spare. You can make your two main sticks longer if you wish.

Practice on cold wood before you give it a trial by fire. Once you get the hang of using these chopsticks, you will wonder how you ever built a fire without them.

If the fire is really hot or the air is really cold, you may want to use gloves when handling your fire sticks.

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