Am I Being a Git?

[durulz]

Having been stuck indoors now for several days, I've started to go a bit stir-crazy.
So yesterday I decided I would go for a wander and set up a shelter somewhere, light a fire, cook something, enjoy being outside etc.
Which is exactly what I did.
However.
Because it was a rather chilly day I decided to set up the shelter near the fire so the warmth would give me a nice toasty hovel. But. The problem is that the smoke from the fire ALSO filled the shelter.
By 'shelter', what I had was a tarp pinned down on three sides, in a sort of triangular pattern. I'm sure you know how I mean.
Just wondered, how do you set up the fire so that the warmth fills the shelter, but the smoke goes elsewhere? When moved to the side I found that it didn't make any appreciable difference (except to the part of me facing the fire) - I was hoping the heat would 'bounce' off the back of the shelter. But that didn't happen. Or maybe I was expecting too much? (after all, when I moved away from the fire I could really tell the difference).
It was like trying to solve Fermat's last theorum. In the end I sacked the idea of the shelter, moved in closer to the fire and cooked up some mixed fruit and cherry bannock.

 

[bigmoose]

It's hard to explain in words, but I've been known to place set up camp in the following way to help direct heat to a tarp.

lets say the wind is blowing primaraly west.. I set up the tarp in a similar fashion to you so that the opening is also facing west. I then set up a small fire about 3 ft from the opening, with the wind blowing any smoke primaraly west.

I then find the biggest flat surface I can find.. I'm lucky as locally we have quite a few large slates of rock. I then dig a rivet in the dirt and sort of stand the slate up close to the fire, on the west side.

It's not perfect, but you get a lot of the smoke blowing west with SOME of the heat being trapped by the rock.

Another cool thing a marine told me, which I havn't tried.. is to smolder out the fire and cover it with a small covering of dirt and lay on that. You can even relight the fire easily in the mornng. But I guess the marines can keep up with the burns that likely come with that

Bigmoose

 

[MartinK9]

You could also build a reflector on the opposite side of the fire to bounce some heat back towards you

 

[HillBill]

You could also build a reflector on the opposite side of the fire to bounce some heat back towards you

This is what i do. Either a pile of rocks or more commonly one of those silver survival blankets mounted on a frame made of sticks lashed together. Only takes 15 mins to make but pays for itself easily with what it does. Think along the lines of those beach shelter wind break things.

 

[wanderinstar]

surely this is what this is for?
"stand the slate up close to the fire, on the west side."

 

[HillBill]

Yes its a reflector also. Stone absorbs heat and stores it for a while.

 

[JohnH]

Yup, agreed. A reflector is what is needed. I have one angled downward and back in to my shelter. Usually construct it out of wet wood, using it dry out logs for me at the same time.

 

[Joonsy]

if there is any wind then angle your shelter so wind is blowing from the side of the shelter not directly from behind, if wind comes directly from behind it creates a circular motion on the front side sucking air (and smoke) into shelter, if wind comes from the side of shelter it reduces the circular motion and takes smoke away from shelter, combine with a reflector behind the fire, in other words as you sit in the opening of shelter facing directly forwards the wind should blow either from your left or your right but not from behind.

 

[h2o]

what joonsy said.