Always have problem starting your fire for outdoor cooking? Take a look at this article on camping fire and understand the logic behind lighting and using them. Read this before you light your next fire and you will understand better!
Tinder
Tinder is any kind of material that will take very little effort to light. Good tinder will only need a spark to ignite it. Some examples are;
Birch bark, dried grasses, fine wood shavings, cotton fluff, bird down and waxed paper
Pine needles, pulverized fir cones and the inner bark from cedar trees
Dried fungi (apparently!), scorched or charred linen/cotton
Dry nests of mice and birds are rather good (CARE must be taken. They must be abandoned and free of life!)
There is just one major thing to remember – Your tinder must be dry
Kindling
I would class kindling as the next step up from tinder. It is the wood that you use to raise the fire from the (short burning) tinder so that eventually you can use larger pieces of fuel. The best kindling is small, dry twigs (soft woods are preferable as they flare up quickly).
Those woods that contain resins burn readily and make firelighting easier. The only problem with soft woods is that they burn fast! Make sure you have a plentiful supply to hand, arranged in different ‘grades’ according to size.
I would suggest that the smallest kindling grade be thinner than a matchstick for certain, working up to the thickness of two or so matches. The thinner and smaller the better. I’ll say it again, as it is important, go and get some more kindling now before you even think about starting the fire. There is nothing worse than starting a small flame and lacking the fuel to keep it going.
P.S. It has been rare quiet for a while here. Don’t worry, the site is still being updated. Have been trying to find good contents to post but it is hard to find. Also, I am currently working at a new company so it is back to the old long working hours for me. Found a good site with good articles. Will be writing to them soon asking for their permission to include their content here. Stay tune!
Edit: Permission has been granted to include excerpts of articles from Scouting Resources!
We are proud to announce that one of our leaders, Ken Ong Hong Sheng was awarded NYAA Gold Award by His Excellence, the President of the Republic of Singapore,Mr S R Nathan, on 3th Oct 08.
This is the first time that Dragon Scouts had achieved a GOLD award and we are proud that Ken made history for the Dragon Scouts by being the FIRST in Dragon Scouts and GESS !
Resources for ventures has been updated as well. Please check resources page for more information.
Edit: Kindly note the venture training scheme is version 2005, which is the previous revision. We are trying to obtain the latest copy. Once obtained, it will be uploaded.
Between 5.30pm to 8pm Singapore time, the server was offline as our server was moved by our host for better performance but something went wrong which resulted in Dragons Online going haywire.
Things are still not in order yet and I am still trying to get them to resolve this with top priorty. I will post here again when everything is confirm resolved.
Meanwhile, please bear with the problem if you see any (some problems are in the backend so you might not notice it).
Edit 27 Sep 2008 @ 12.40pm: Gallery is not working at the moment but the photos are safe. Our webhost has not responded so I can’t do anything as well as it is beyond my control.
Edit 28 Sep 2008 @ 10.30pm: Everything is back to normal now. Got our server moved back to where it was previously. If you still see any errors, please let me know.
