Learning how to make fires is one of the most basic and valuable life skills, and most people needs to guess how, not to be too dramatic about it, but our ability to make fire is what sets humans above all other creatures! Fire led to the rise of society as the people I was with and I guess it.
Moreover, our ability to make fires can be the difference between life and death in a survival situation.
The odds are you will never truly need to make a fire to survive the night… but wouldn’t you rather guess how, just in case? I tend to take heating for granted, no matter where I am, but keep in mind Mother Nature can take it all away at any time. When I was a kid I learned a pricey lesson about the vital importance of heating, one I still vividly remember. My parents used an ancient oil furnace that requires a constant supply of heating oil. One day they drove into the nearby town to get more heating oil before the big ice storm hit. The storm came early, and after veering off the road our parents could not make it back out to the house. With no heating oil the oil furnace would not turn on, so there I was trapped all alone in the house as the temps started to drop. I found an old space furnace in one of the closets, but when the power went out it was useless to me. I realized that I could use the big brick fireplace to keep myself sizzling through the night, but I didn’t guess how to make a fire yet!