Youngest, smallest, thinnest...........

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rich59

Maker
Aug 28, 2005
2,217
25
65
London
What is the youngest age you have come across to achieve various fire lighting skills?

It was fun teaching 10 year olds to make a successful tinder from leaves and grass.

I have seen a 10 year old get smoke from hand drilling.
 

StormWalker

Need to contact Admin...
Jul 4, 2005
109
0
46
Mid-Wales
My 7yr old made a nice little fire on the floor of my shed :eek: whilst playing with my Ferocium he caught the sawdust.

Trouble being i was inside the house. :eek: :eek: :eek:

After the panic and me losing my head i had to be proud of his early BC skill. :lmao: :lmao:

That said all BC items are now well out of reach.
 

Willowbark

Tenderfoot
Sep 4, 2005
84
2
Stroud, Gloucestershire
I started my lad by laying fires when he was five, lighting them with a match.
He's eight now and is good at managing a cooking fire. We sometimes light them with a large firebow, with one of us on each end, but he hasn't managed it by himself yet.
 

andyn

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Aug 15, 2005
2,392
29
Hampshire
www.naturescraft.co.uk
I set fire to my bedroom carpet aged 12....wasn't really bushcrafty mind you. ;)

And i wouldn't really call it a fire lighting skill either (My parents certainly didn't think so anyway ;) )
But I had been making fires (using matches and the like) on the farm from about the age of 7 or 8.
 

Steve K

Tenderfoot
May 12, 2004
91
0
49
Eastleigh, Hampshire
My daughter Ellen, now 5 started helping me with campfires from about the age of 3, including damping down and scattering the ashes.

I often camp out when we visit my wife's parents and she can't get her wellies on quick enough, and definately doesn't have time to swap her pyjamas for clothes.

Steve
 

Topcat02

Settler
Aug 9, 2005
608
2
56
Dymock, Gloucestershire
My two daughters have helped with our Open fire since they were toddlers. They clear out the grate, put the base layers of paper down, arrange the kindling, create a mini-tower shape, and provide the puff to get the fire to take.

They are much better than me! :lmao:
 

Longstrider

Settler
Sep 6, 2005
990
12
59
South Northants
Firstly, well done to you Lits. That first successful fire by friction is a wonderful thing. I should know, I achieved my first success just before Xmas after trying on-and-off for about 30 years.

Having grown up in the woods and over the fields I was lighting fires from an early age. Tutored by my uncle and an old keeper I spent a great deal of time with, I had it down to fine art long before my mates. I can still hear the keepers advice on the matter in my mind. "Get three good heaps ready afore you strike the light boy. Tinder, tinder lights (What he called very fine dry twigs) and "finger sticks". Light the tinder and chuck the rest on it as you pick it up. If'n its ever going to burn, it'll burn then. Just don't go poking at it before theres good embers under it all". The fact that you had to have gathered a supply of decent firewood (bigger stuff) beforehand was taken for granted. That advice, like so much that he gave me, has proved it's worth and truth a thousand times over since.

I remeber being at Cub camp when I was about 8 and being the only person on camp, Akela and leaders included, who could repeatedly get a fire going on a soggy week with only one match and no paper.
I spent years of my childhood convinced that my mother must have been telepathic. I would often get home after a day over the fields cooking cheap sausages on sticks over a fire and/or casting lead ammo for my catapult to be met with "You've been out having campfires again, haven't you!" I probably reeked of woodsmoke and had sooty smudges all over my face, but being unable to smell it on myself I couldn't work out how she knew exactly what I'd been doing ! *LOL*.
 

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