Pitch Wood, Fat Wood, or Fat Lighter Fire Starting Applications

I did a little time in the Scouts when I was young.  We were a pretty active troop and we camped out about once a month.  Like every kid alive I was captivated by all things fire, especially the ability to start one at will. Most of the time we would “cheat” when we started one with some sort of unnatural accelerant. But occasionally someone would use a piece of “Fat Lighter” or “Lighter Wood” to get the fire started.  I understood that it was very flammable and helpful to start the fire when it was wet out. I remember the smell of it, like a christmas tree. The color was also very distinct. It seemed to glow and be translucent, like a piece of amber. Someone told me that it came from old fence posts.

What this magic natural fire starter was is known as “pitch wood”, “fatwood”, “fat lighter”, “lighter wood”, and probably lots more regionally specific terms.  This wood is formed when a pine tree dies and starts to break down. The veins of pitch (sap or resins) in the core of the tree are the slowest part to break down and the concentration of pitch increases as the exterior of the tree starts to dry out and decompose.  

You can find pitch wood by busting open old pine stumps and trunks, and you can actually get pretty good at spotting it from a distance in pines of more of an advanced state of decomposition.  Spots where the limbs split from the trunks of old pines usually have a pretty heavy concentration of pitch and they form large nodules that are sometimes “winged”. In the accompanying video I show you what to look for.

As I learned in the scouts, pitch wood is a very valuable tool in your fire starting armamentarium.  You can take the back of your knife and “scrape” the wood into a pile that will easily accept a spark from a ferrocerium rod or add to a tinder bundle to help bring a coal to a flame. The pitch wood pile is especially useful if everything around you is wet and you only have a spark to start your fire.

If you have a flame like a lighter or a match you can shave the pitch wood with the edge of your knife to produce “curls” or a “feather stick”.  The feathers take a flame easily, and they burn hot and high to help you start less than ideal kindling. You can even split and feather smaller sticks to make reasonably long burning “candles” that can brighten things up a little at night.

As I started to learn to recognize pitch wood I started seeing it everywhere.  I was especially excited when I saw big pieces. The big chunks were so strong that I like to use them as “batons” when I’m splitting other pieces down for processing. Around the same time I began to appreciate pitch wood I was working on the “bow drill” fire method.  The hardest part of making the bow drill, besides the cordage for the bow, was creating the “hand hold block” that let the spindle spin smoothly and wouldn’t burn through. One day my friend and I decided to try a big chunk of pitch wood as the hand hold block. It worked great.  In fact, I’ve been using that particular piece as my favorite hand hold block for years in my “demo kit”. Another side benefit is that you can scrape some of the pitch wood into your tinder bundle or even make an entire tinder bundle out of pitch wood scrapings to help your coal along. We decided that the pitch wood hand hold blocks looked like a potato.  We also decided that since they were so dense that they could be used as a weapon, so they were “tactical”. The “TAC-TATER” was born. I only tell you this because I call the pitch wood hand hold block that when I pull out my demo bow drill kit and sometimes people give me a funny look. So now know you know if you ever hear me ask for the “TAC-TATER”.

If you are camping in wet weather and need to get a fire started then pitch wood can be your best friend.  You look like a true rugged wilderness hero when you kick over an old stump, bust it open to produce a magical fire starting material and produce a roaring warming flame like a caveman. Do yourself a favor and get used to spotting pitch wood and keep some in your fire kit, it honestly rivals much of the store bought starters, in fact much of the store bought stuff is packaged pitch wood…

NinjaEveryday