The Swedish Candle – a movable campfire

Two dry pine logs (the one on the left is about 20″ tall), hammer, hatchet and safety goggles.

You can easily split a dry log with just a hatchet and hammer.

Same process, actually helps to stand log on piece of wood to protect the hatchet – exactly like i havent done here!

You can see the toe of my boot at the bottom of the picture – doh!

Make a bundle with your four main pieces at the corners and separate them with your smaller ones then bind the whole thing round the base with wet string or wire.

Here’s those smaller pieces seen from above. One you’ve got the wire or rope round the base you can hammer in more of these to make it nice and tight.

From left to right: ‘old man’s beard’, birch bark, shavings made with knife, thein ksticks, slightly thicker ones.

This last bit helped to close up the largest gap making the fire ‘draw’ well immediately after lighting

One match was all it took to set this off. Next time I’ll use a bit more ‘old man’s beard’ – its perfect for this.

The SW is perfect for a kettle or cooking pot. This one burned hot for an hour and a half.

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Here is how to make a Swedish Candle from a couple of pine logs, a hatchet and a hammer. This one burned for over an hour and a half – it also boiled the kettle! The SW is perfect if you need to make a fire on wet or snow covered ground, it can  be moved when lit and you can cook on it from the moment its lit.

Its also ideal for the garden because it doesnt require a firepit and it wont burn a hole in the lawn. Alternatively, if your planning an outing to the lake shore or beach you can take one of these in the boot of the car and have your fire lit within minutes!

There are a number of variations and we’ll be looking at these in upcoming posts.