Winter hub
Fire in Winter
Everything is wet, the ground wants to eat your heat, and your fingers have half their dexterity. Fire in winter is a planned operation, not a lucky one.
Wet Wood Still Burns — If You Find the Right Kind
Dead wood that is standing and not punky is your target: it dries fastest and burns hottest.
- Gather dead standing branches (snags) rather than anything on the ground.
- Split wood open — the core of even a rain-soaked log is usually dry.
- Birch bark, fatwood (resin-soaked pine), and split spruce tips light even damp.
- Process twice as much wood as you think you need before lighting — night comes early.
- Build the fire on a platform of green logs or split wood, raised off the snow, with a reflector wall behind it.
Do
- Keep a full tinder bundle ready and dry before you strike anything.
Don't
- Don’t build directly on snow — it melts through and strangles the fire.
Firestarters: Bring Redundancy
Winter is the wrong place to bet everything on one ignition source.
- Ferro rod (sparks in any weather, works with gloves) plus stormproof matches plus a lighter.
- Vaseline-soaked cotton balls in a waterproof tin: burns hot for minutes, weighs nothing.
- Commercial tinder cubes or wetfire — cheap insurance.
- Practice one-glove fire lighting: you will lose dexterity exactly when you need it most.
Stoves in the Cold
Your stove is your water source and your hot meal — cold changes how every fuel behaves.
- Canister stoves lose pressure below freezing; inverted (liquid-feed) mode or a heat exchanger helps, and warm the canister in your jacket first.
- White gas (liquid fuel) is the gold standard for winter: it pressurizes at any temperature.
- Pack the stove where it can’t freeze; a cold stove is a stubborn stove.
- Melting snow for water takes roughly 3–4 volumes of snow per volume of water — plan fuel accordingly.
Never burn fuel in a sealed shelter
Stoves, candles, and heaters in tents and snow shelters cause carbon monoxide deaths every winter. Cook in an open vestibule or outside, and never bring a canister stove into a snow cave. If anyone feels headachy or drowsy inside, get to fresh air immediately.