How to Start a Wood Fire with Vegetable Oil, Paper, Matches and Wood

If you have a fireplace that takes wood or love to barbecue over oak like I do, then you probably have tried starting a fire and ran into some of the difficulties. There are a few things you need to start a wood fire.

1. First, you'll need a section of newspaper. A small section of about seven to eight pages works for me.
   
2. You'll need some Pam or spray vegetable oil. This may sound a little odd, but Pam burns. When it burns, it ads heat and helps the newspaper burn longer. Pam is also less toxic than some of the fire starter blocks you can buy at the store.
   
3. You'll need some small pieces of word. I prefer twelve inch pieces of split oak that are less than five inches in diameter.
   
4. Lastly, you will need a match to light the paper and let it rip.

This technique is great for starting fires for barbecues or in your indoor fireplace.

Here are the steps to create a roaring fire in minutes.

Step one crumple the news paper pieces up and spray them with Pam. A light coating of less than five seconds of spray per piece will work. It's important to spray each piece. Then, stack all the paper balls together and lay four to six pieces of wood in the shape of a tee-pee around the stack of news paper balls. The idea is to have the wood in a shape that allows the fire to climb while it burns and that provides good airflow to the fire to increase the heat. I sometimes will put a small piece of wood across the top of my tee-pee. When that piece catches ,I know my fire will last. After the tee-pee is formed, I light the paper.

Every time I use this technique to start a fire, it lights on the first try. If you run into a problem starting a fire this way, here are a few things to check. Is the wood in too large of chunks or green. Wood that is large or green is difficult to catch fire. Use smaller pieces of split hardwood, or try soft wood like pine. Another problem area is caused by smothering. Sometimes people collapse the wood across the newspaper to tightly to don't leave air gaps between the wood. As the wood catches fire, it needs to be able to draw oxygen to help the fire breathe. Smothering the wood and fire is not only likely to be difficult to light, but it will also put off a lot more smoke.