Fatwood / fatlighter / lighterknot

[PissRev]

I love collecting and splitting fatwood into kindling. It smells awesome and it's my favorite kindling fire starter.

 

[mountain]

yep, we grew up picking up pineknots in the woods ,
best kindling there is.

 

[USMC615]

I love collecting and splitting fatwood into kindling. It smells awesome and it's my favorite kindling fire starter.

Yep...got several cardboard boxes slam full of split fat lighter.

 

[Hinerman]

I love collecting and splitting fatwood into kindling. It smells awesome and it's my favorite kindling fire starter.

Where do you get that stuff?

 

[Hinerman]

yep, we grew up picking up pineknots in the woods ,
best kindling there is.

I provide a trailer load of mixed wood for a church "camping trip" in early spring. I had some pine in the trailer. I threw a piece on the fire and it erupted in huge flames. One of the guys said, "What are you doing? Putting gas-soaked wood on the fire?". That is what it looked like when it went off.

 

[Locust Cutter]

I love collecting and splitting fatwood into kindling. It smells awesome and it's my favorite kindling fire starter.

What sort of Pine is that?

 

[PissRev]

Where do you get that stuff?

I dig it up out of the ground. I've seen it anywhere pines grow. That particular piece came from my property in SE Ga. The trees had been harvested maybe 20 years ago and what's left of the old stumps are all fatwood.
This is what a different piece of fatwood looks like in the ground.


A little digging uncovered this piece if excellent fatwood.



Sometimes the stumps are so big that it would take a backhoe to dig them up.

 

[PissRev]

What sort of Pine is that?

It could have been Loblolly, Slash, or Longleaf since those are the type of pine trees that were harvested off this property about 20 years ago.

 

[mountain]

around here in southwest Virginia, we have mostly yellow pine in the mountains
When a pine tree dies the log will rot away leaving the knots.
Where the limb grows off the trunk is some of the richest,
That and the stumps like PissRev said
Years ago folks used them for torches,burns a real black smoke.

 

[Hinerman]

Years ago folks used them for torches,burns a real black smoke.

Yes, that piece I threw in the campfire looked like somebody threw a tire in the fire with all the black smoke.

 

[Wood Doctor]

I find it rather amazing that many of my customers still use charcoal lighter. There are so many free options for getting a fireplace or stove lit that it seems absurd to buy "boy scout fluid".

And, in less than an hour I can split down several boxes full of dry elm logs to small kindling scraps that seem to work better than dry tree branches. Perhaps nobody in today's digital cell phone age reads newspapers anymore?

 

[mountain]

a country boy can survive

 

[jakethesnake]

I use pine cones.. Then ends of cut off 2 x4 a pine cones are my go to. 3 pine cones and some hardwood split down with a hatchet have a roaring fire in 5 10 minutes. I never was really taught haven't been burning wood all that long

 

[Wood Doctor]

I use pine cones.. Then ends cut off 2 x4's and pine cones work for me. Pine cones and some hardwood split down with a hatchet start a roaring fire in 5 to 10 minutes. I never was really taught. I haven't been burning wood all that long.

Note: Edited for clarity.

Pine cones make good kindling? Dang, that's good to know, but I must confess after all these years that I have never tried them. I guess I've had too many options to choose from besides them. Pine cones never seem to make it to the drop sites.

 

[jakethesnake]

Pine cones start easy. You dry them they light with a match. Lay little stuff on top of that and you're off to the racesraces

 

[Hinerman]

Splitter scrap is good fire starter. I have 55 gallon barrels full of the stuff. I punch holes in the bottom so water will drain. I sell them for $10 to cover the cost of the barrel. When the customer runs out, I trade them a full one for the empty one for free.

 

[Stump Shot]

Up here by us hun-yucks, we've always called 'em pitch pine stumps. They used to be plentiful, from the logging days of old. Now not so much. Now I pretty much save up some birch bark that comes off after it's been split, with an outdoor boiler it's rare to have to re-start a fire the whole winter long.

 

[Wood Doctor]

I generally have to noodle cut big rounds in half to load them onto the tailgate. Sometimes I have to quarter them. Rather than leave the noodles on the ground, I recently raked them up and saved them in a couple of big sacks.

If cut from rather dry rounds, they really work well to light a fire. They dry so fast that even a typical round from a green tree would probably work.

 

[Ron660]

In my part of Louisiana it's called either lighter pine or rich lighter. It's the center or heart of a pine tree. It never rots, due to the resin, and old-timers used it for fence posts. It definitely has a unique smell. I always use it for a fire starter.

 

[mountain]

Yep
I been a walking through the woods and seen two rows
of knots laying there knowing that there was a tree
there years ago,
like you said ,unique smell,
In one of the foxfire books ,they tell how to make tar from it.