Session 6 – Fire
Session 6 – Fire
Objectives
1. Demonstrate the practical skills most commonly used during a residential experience
Topics covered
- preparation
- types of fire
- woodpiles
- Lighting and extinguishing fires
- cooking over fire
Key messages
Fire lighting is an important basic skill in Scouting. It is important in cooking, keeping warm, camping and as a focal point for various activities.
Knowing how to prepare, lay and light different sort of fires is important. It is equally important to know how to extinguish a fire and to clear the fire place correctly.
This session is a practical session that should cover all the elements of fire lighting.
This can be delivered as a specialist session by a specialist trainer or as a series of bases. It could also be incorporated into a series of activities that take place throughout a weekend. Timings listed are only an estimate.
The session should incorporate some practical activity allowing participants to have a go. For example, the session could be run as an activity in the evening, where the participants learn to make fire, cook their evening meal, and a camp fire is run as the evening’s entertainment.
There are no specific trainer notes for this, but the following needs to be covered:
- basic advice for fire lighting
- safety information
- where to light a fire
- restrictions on campsites
- turfing the fireplace
- woodpiles
- wood, and its different grades
- equipment for building a fire
- firelighters
- pyramid fire
- altar fires
- trench fires
- extinguishing a fire and clearing up
- carbon monoxide
- barbecues
Cooking with fire
- Homemade ovens
- Open fires
- Backwoods cooking
Campfires
- maintaining fire
- seating
- ceremonies and entertainment
- campfire leader