Fire Family

Teaching a relationship with fire.

I crouch around the firepit with Brand, a bright eyed six-year-old girl with blond hair in a braid over her shoulder.

“Tell me about fire families,” I say. She points at the sticks arrayed before her. “This is a tinder bundle - it’s . . . baby food,” “The first thing the fire can eat, yes - how big do you want the twigs?” She shows me again, picking up the hemlock bundle and pointing, “no bigger than pencil lead.” “Okay, what’s next.”

“Then comes toddler food,” she points. “Then kid food, teenager, and . . . “ she grins hefting the largest log, a block of real firewood, “Adult food. You can’t give them to the fire out of order.” “Good, now show me what you’re going to do when I light your bundle on fire.” She grabs it, holding it vertically with her fingers gripping only the very top. “I’m going to hold it like this - until the fire is almost to my fingers,” “And then do you throw it down?” “No! I set it down gently.” “In what direction?” “This way, so that I can blow it towards the not-burnt part.” “Then? “I add food in order,” “Tossing it down?” “No - placing it gently.” “What direction?” “Crosswise like Lincoln Logs”

We pause, I pull out my lighter. Childproof - and it turns out the childproofing actually works - so I’m the one who flicks the fire into being.

“Are you ready?” I ask. “Yeah,” she says confidently.

I light the bundle and fire flares up along it, bright orange light dancing along the wicklike branches. The flame climbs a few inches when she puts it down, motion jerky, the fire flutters, unsure whether to climb or attempt to hunker down into coal. The girl decides for it as she blows in one hard gust, and the flames fade to embers that quickly transmute to ash.

“What did you learn?” I ask. “I think I put it down too fast.” “I noticed that too. Anything else?” “I’m not sure,” “When you blow, blow like this.” I come close to the dead bundle, nose almost touching it, breathe a constant breeze. “Show me.” We practice it, again and again, and again.

“Now make another tinder bundle - you can start with what’s left of this one - and come back to me when you’re done.”

---

I don’t remember my first fire. I have always lived with wood heat, and sometime in my life I began making the morning fires, but I was adding to them long before that. These fires were paper and kindling affairs, built in the belly of my old iron stove.

I remember early on loving to build the fire up from a scattering of starving coals, coaxing it up into life from the seed secreted in an ember. I loved the continuity of fire, going out of my way to light a candle from the fireplace, imagining, always, what life would be without a match.

You don’t really know fire though until you’ve failed at making one. I’ll never forget inviting my crush into the woods for a romantic fire, strutting my woodsman credentials, and then - failing. Cold and wet in the dark, we curled up and shared secrets like shadows, intimate as the last lingering light of an ember, but what I would have done to spark that flame.

I remember sitting on the beach in fading light with a men’s group and suggesting a fire with nothing but a lighter in my pocket. I was sure I could do it. One crumpled receipt came out for paper, I foraged for dry wood - blackberry stalks and crumpled seaweed. I coaxed that fire as the others talked until another man came in to try and help. We got it smoking but never a flame. I wanted to be that man who could kindle community from the wilds but I wasn’t. Not yet.

And then when children asked me for fires, out in the wilds, and I tried. Everything is always so damp here. By this point I knew the theory of what I was supposed to do, watching as other mentors would coax fire out of flint and steel, and I felt like I should be able to coax it out of plastic and butane - but no.

I don’t remember my first fire, but I remember all the ones I failed to light.

---

I invite Brand over to another child’s fire - his second - now blazing, burning adult food, the sign of a successful fire. I wave my hand through the fire. “You try.”

“Are you a wizard?” an observing boy asks. “How did you do that?” “It’s easy, come try.” I repeat the gesture. “How are you not burning yourself?!” he exclaims “It’s really not that hot. You have to leave your hand in a flame for it to burn,” I explain.

Brand comes over, gazing at the fire. “It really won’t hurt?” she asks. “It really won’t.” I wave my hand through the fire again.

She steels herself and follows me - hand streaking through the fire as fast as it can, and far faster than it needs to be, but I see pride and awe in her face when her hand, unburnt, comes clean of the fire. “She’s a witch!” the boy exclaims.

“I want you to practice this, I tell Brand. Get comfortable with just how close you can go to the flames before you get burnt. Befriend the fire.”

---

The first time I saw anyone spinning fire it changed my life. “I want to do that,” I told my parents. “I want to move like they move.” They didn’t give me fire to spin, but it was that conversation that led me to martial arts.

The first time I saw my future mate walk out with a flaming hoop spinning around her head like a halo on an avenging angel, it changed everything. Was it the fire? Drawing me like a moth to a flame? Is it truly that simple?

There was one man I saw spinning fire a few years back. I forget his name or even his face, but remember the way he spun fire. He moved with an intimacy I’ve never seen before or since, cupping the flames with bare hands like newborn kittens, caressing the flames against his cheek. Always in motion, a lover making love with the flames, oblivious of the crowd watching.

I imagine that man making a fire. It would kindle at his fingertips.

---

It’s solstice night, vigil night, and I’ve lit my candle off Calcifer and headed out into the clearcut to stay awake until dawn. This is my first night attempting this without the aid of my phone and the crutch it provides - flashlight, and blessed timepiece.

Earlier today I noticed that one of the burn piles, lit over a month ago, was still smoking. Now, after wandering nightblinded by my candle, I make my way to the orange glow of the coals still strong after all this time.

Settling down beside it, I try and coax the coal to life, but it’s strangely fragile, powdering away at my breath. There might be more coals buried, but I decide on the easier route. Everything is incredibly dry. I take time by flickering candle light to gather dry twigs and make a tinder bundle. I arrange my fire families, and light off my candle, laying it atop the still hot earth where the strange coal crumbled.

The fire lights, bright and happy, easy, easier than it’s ever been before. 

---

“My mom says I’m not allowed to put my hand through the fire anymore,” Brand informs me the next week. “It’s not safe.”

It’s her turn to try again. Half the children who wanted to join the Ranger’s guild have given up by now. My guild ‘at home in the wilds’ was initially the most popular, but those who haven’t passed the fire test -my criterion for acceptance- have grown discouraged and drift towards other guilds.

Brand’s enthusiasm remains unchecked though, and when this fourth attempt sputters she begins gathering to try again.

“What did you learn?” I ask after each attempt.

“I need to have my hair up out of the way before I even light my fire.” She tells me this time.

---

I’m out in the woods with a younger mentor and the kids bring me a tinder bundle and ask for a fire for lunch. “You want to try?” I ask him.

To my knowledge, this is his first attempt. He does it well, everything in order, and not afraid of the fire, but still it sputters and the flame falters. “Will you save it please?” He asks me.

I get down on my belly and start to blow, in-breath in short quick gasps, out-breath with consistent slow force, snapping twigs to feed the fire as I blow. Everything is damp. It was, on consideration, a hard first attempt, but the consistent breath makes enough heat from the coals that the twigs steam, drying as I watch, then finally bursting alight.

Each piece of wood becomes the catalyst to allow the next to burn. My younger mentor takes care of the children as I put my full attention into the fire and when I look up, time must have passed because the children are almost done with their lunches. The fire is burning happily.

Moisture I learn is navigable. It simply requires you to do everything a little better. There’s less room for even the smallest error. As I rise from my belly and look around me, I feel ready for the next step. The next failure. Flint and steel - then maybe a bow drill, growing more and more intimate with fire.

---

I crouch around the firepit with Brand. This is her sixth attempt at a fire - her first today.

“You have all your fire families where you want them?” I ask.

She shows me, I send her back for a little more toddler food. “It never hurts to have too much, and it’s much easier to collect before the fire is started than after.”

“Now show me how you hold the tinder bundle?” she shows me - her form for this part perfect by now.

“Take a deep breath,” I command. She does, calming a little. I flick on the lighter.

“Are you ready?” I ask. “Yeah,” she says confidently.

I light her tinder bundle and this time she waits a ridiculously long time. The fire is practically burning in her hands before she gently sets it down. She adds toddler food, a little slower than I would have but the fire stays big enough and takes the dry tinder easily. She builds her flaming feast up until she finally adds her adult food to the crackling blaze. Success!

I send her off to harvest more adult food

“What did you learn?” I ask She’s grinning ear to ear. “Fire can be your friend.”