How to start a fire in the wilderness?

What diffrent meathods can a person use and how do you know if you have the right size sticks.How to start a fire in the wilderness?
There are several different methods for starting a fire. It's obvious that you need oxygen, fuel and heat for a fire.



For heat, you can use a match, propane lighter, magnesium/steel striker, flint and steel.



Oxygen may seem like a no brainer, but it has to be able to get to the heat and fuel. Be sure that air can be funneled to the fuel.



As far as the size of the sticks, you want to start with the smallest size possible. You can use moss, shredded bark. dry cotton cloth, the heart of a pine log. There's a lot of turpentine in pine wood and it's highly concentrated in the center. Leaves don't burn well, but produces a lot of smoke. Pine needles make a hot fire, but burns fast so have your small twigs close by. Pine cones are good, crumble it up to make smaller pieces and shred the inner core. Another good fire starter is shredded cedar or juniper bark. These fuel sources are not found everywhere, but the main idea is to use something that will shred or crumble up into small pieces. I've even used a battery and steel wool to start a fire.



Next, get tiny twigs. These are going to be the size of a pencil lead or smaller. Then gradually build up the size of the wood as the fire builds up. Everything you need is on the ground. Live wood will not burn, so there is no need to chop on a live tree or bush. Use only the dead wood you find on the ground. A cooking fire will be small and you want it to burn down to coals for the best cooking fire. Most of the time you will not use anything bigger than the thickness of your lower arm. You don't need a saw or an axe. If you can't break it by hand, then it's not dried out enough.



After you are through with the fire, let it go out and completely cool down. If you have enough water then use some of it stirring the ashes to mix them up with the water. Use your hands to make sure all coals are completely cold, then scatter the ashes. You want the scene to look as untouched as possible. Scatter dirt and leaves over the area. If you're using a fire ring or an established fire pit, thie scattering is not necessary, but the cooling is.
The simplest is using a match and tinder. To start a fire by rubbing sticks to gather is actually the hardest possible way. Flint and steel, or a magnesium fire starter are easier the then stick method. To learn how to start a fire with a bow fire stick there are many videos on the web I suggest you watch those.

http://video.search.yahoo.com/search/vid鈥?/a>How to start a fire in the wilderness?
To start the fire, you can use anything small, dry leaves, dry pine cones, small dry branches. Basically, anything dry that isn't dense. To keep it going, larger branches are better.