Buckeye on Buckeye Hand-Drill Fire

Anyone that has taken our Wilderness Skills and Survival Clinic knows that there are LOTS of ways to make fire, and LOTS of different kinds of tools and materials at our dispososal out there in the wilderness. But one of the most common questions we get is, "what is the best around here?" And by "here" we are usually talking about the central coast of California.

I'm sure there are people out there that will disagree, but I am going to go ahead and put my vote out there for California Buckeye.

Either for use as bow-drill fire wood, or a hand-drill kit, this local wood is medium-to-soft on the hardness skale, burns well when damp, and has the handy habit of growing perfect hand-drill stalks out from it's base.

Below is the progession from harvested stalk and branch wood (for the fireboard) all the way to a glowing red coal. This fire was made from freshly falled wood today, January 26, 2008. It has been raining in Santa Cruz pretty much nonstop for about 48 hours, so things are pretty saturated. I picked up this stalk and fallen branch at about 8am while on a walk, and kept them in my jacket to dry them off a bit. Even though the wood was still damp, the fire was started by 12 Noon when I returned from my hike.