Making fire is not all fun and games, and it can be a teaching opportunity with the troop.
Show Notes:
- Firem’n Chit 1-pagers: This the the one-pager discussed in the video, available in fireman chit (500mb) format and the original editable MS Word (500mb) Format.
- Chimney Charcoal Starter (Amazon)
Transcript:
Following up from last week’s ScoutmasterDave on knife skills, this week’s episode is on Fire skills.
While the Totin’ skills have room for individual interpretation, firem’n chit is wide open. The requirements for completing Firem’n are very light, and do not include many real world skills necessary to be in the outdoors.
As such, I have created a one-pager that we have successfully used for about 5 years now.
The one-pager, that you can find in the show notes at ScoutmasterDave.com includes the standard fire building requirements including fire lays, the differences between tinder, kindling and fuel, and building a fire, but it also includes the use of propane stoves, propane lanterns, charcoal and the handling of propane canisters.
Some of these elements may be specific to my troop, but without these skills it’s difficult to cook or even effectively operate in the troop, so we include it as part of Firem’n.
Unlike axes and knives where boys can’t wait to get ahold of then, working with propane and fire is approached more cautiously by the boys. Most are honestly afraid of it at first.
The first thing I do when teaching fire skills is lighting the match, and just holding it, as their first instance is to drop it.
I tell the boys that they will burn themselves at some point. How severely depends on how they handle it when it occurs.
Once they are comfortable lighting the match, we work through lighting the stove, how to control the flames, the problems that can occur and what to do with the match. In our troop, I tell them to drop the match in the middle of the stove in the metal basin, so they are not tempted to put it out on the ground.
Lighting the propane lantern is next, while we have the adults generally light the propane lantern they boys are around them a lot and explaining how hot they get, and what to do around them takes the mystery out of their use.
The charcoal is the far-easiest but using the charcoal chimney is an important skill for the boys to learn.
The great part about having the same syllabus for every boy is that you know the skill set and don’t have to worry about the boys handing general outdoor skills. but this is what works for us.
Take what you like and leave the rest, and as we say in Woodbadge, feedback is a gift, leave yours below in the comments, with the hope we can all learn together.
I’m Scoutmaster Dave, and this was fire skills.
