Fatwood Basics

If you belong to any outdoor groups, you have probably heard the term "fatwood" or "fat lighter" at some point. Fatwood comes from Pine trees and is one of the best fire starting tools you can have in your arsenal. It is relatively easy to find if you know where to look.

Pine sap is extremely flammable and with a little knowledge you can get a fire going even in the wettest conditions. In my area, we have a lot of yellow, white and loblolly pines. The way the root system works on pine trees makes them more susceptible to falling in a storm or snapping in two during high winds. This leaves the forest floor littered with downed pines everywhere you look. I collect fatwood from these downed pines every chance I get. You can still get some good fire material from a live pine, but it is generally better if the tree has been down for at least a season. Once it has fallen, the water inside will start to dry up leaving only the flammable sap. If you get to the right places, you can harvest the fatwood out of the dead tree with a little bit of elbow grease.

I used to get all my fatwood from the stumps of pines that snapped off part of the way up. There is usually a good supply near the heart of the stump. I would knock off any dead and rotted material to get to the solid core and just saw or chop a few chunks out. Getting the fatwood from the stump takes a considerable amount of work and without a chainsaw, can be very exhausting. Now the only time I tackle a stump is if I have a chainsaw with me and even then it is a lot of work.

My preferred method now is to find an entire tree that has been down for at least a couple of years. My property is littered with pines that came down several years ago during a bad storm. I look for the larger branches still attached to the tree and with my axe I will chop down into the main part of the tree around the branch. The knot where the limb is attached is what you are after here. They are usually saturated with sap and will have a very waxy appearance.

I try to remove the entire knot as much as possible along with 4 or 5 inches of the actual limb. Using a knife or my axe I will knock off the dead and rotted material around the limb and basically "dig" the knot out. Once I get a few of these gathered up, I head back to camp to process them into material to refill my fire kits. If I am just gathering enough to get a fire going at that time, a couple of these limbs are plenty.

I start the processing off by cleaning all the bark and rotted stuff out of the knot. I will then take my axe or knife and split the knot into as small of pieces as I can. The 4 or 5 inches of branch above the knot helps here by giving me a place to start splitting. If you have ever tried to split a knot, you know how tough it can be. By splitting with the grain of the wood, I have pretty good luck getting the knot to break apart in manageable pieces. I will then take the pieces I have split and using my knife, I'll shave it into small shavings similar to making a feather stick. I also like to make "fatwood dust" by holding my knife at a 90-degree angle to the piece and scraping back and forth. This creates a super fine dust that will ignite almost immediately with a ferro rod. I also like to leave some larger pieces to feed the fire once I have a flame going.

Truthfully, you can shave dust and curls off almost any part of the solid wood and they will ignite. The knotty areas tend to have a higher concentration of the sap which in my experience extends the burn time considerably. When I am out gathering for my fire kits though, I tend to stick to the knots. The dust and shavings I get from the knots seem to hold on to the sap a little longer after I have added them to my various kits.

One pine tree dead on the ground can supply you with enough fatwood to last an entire season even if you are making a lot of fires. Look for the waxy appearance to get the most saturated parts of the tree. With the pines we have here, the knots always seem to be very orange colored and look like they have been intentionally waxed. If you don't have pine trees in your area, another place to look is at any store that sells fireplace or wood stove supplies. Almost all the big brand hardware stores (Lowes, Home Depot, etc.) carry bags or boxes of fatwood specifically for lighting fires. You can get a 4 pound bag for around $5 at these stores. It's a great resource, especially if you are using fatwood to teach fire skills. I was teaching some kids a while back how to light a fire with a ferro rod and we blew through my self harvested supply really fast. Now if I intend to teach, I will go buy a bag of fatwood to use instead of my personal supply.

A word of caution about burning pine. Because of the high sap content, it is not recommended to burn pine in a fireplace or woodstove as your primary source of fuel. It creates a LOT of creosote in the flue. I use small pieces to get my fire going and then I switch to a seasoned hardwood. I will occasionally throw a piece of pine in just to get the fire burning a little hotter but not often. The smoke from burning pine is black and can be harmful to breathe so make sure you aren't inhaling any more than necessary to get your fire going.