Lighter pine

In continuing the discussion we had yesterday about chopping firewood, I omitted describing something that we collect, split and use that really helps in starting a fire in the fireplace: Lighter Pine.  It is also called kindling, fat pine, pine knot, or heart pine.   This is the heart or center of a pine tree in which the sap or resin has concentrated.  The resin is rot resistant and hard.  It will last forever, even in our moist, humid rot-prone environment in South Louisiana.  The resin will light easily and burn quickly.

Every chance we get, we look for this in the woods and bring it home to stockpile it.  We split it up in real skinny pieces and use it to get the fires started in our fireplace instead of natural gas.  It is a fast fire-starter and only requires one match to catch - even if it is wet.  One of the downsides, though, is the thick, black, oily smoke it produces.  As a result we have a chimney sweep come and clean our chimney.

Here are some lighter pine logs we have stored between two trees, ready for splitting when we need it.  No telling how old the trees are that those logs came from. 


Heart pine logs

Here are a few heart pine posts that we haven't cut up into logs yet.  You can see the one in the middle must have been used as the post supporting a gate at one time as there are rusty hinges nailed to it. 


This stuff does not rot

So I take my trusty axe and cut a sliver of the pine.  I wish you could smell the rich aroma - smells just like the disinfectant, Pine-Sol.  It smells so clean and fragrant.  Benjamin kept smelling it over and over as we split it up last night. 


Split Lighter Pine

Then I just split small slivers of this stuff and put in a pile for use in getting the fireplace burning.  In Boy Scouts, they teach you to take a small stick of this and notch out several cuts along the edges with your pocketknife to serve as an effective fire starter for a campfire.  One thing to keep in mind, however, is to wait until the pine has completely burned before you cook over the fire.  Pine flavored chicken or beans probably isn't in any recipe books for good reason.

When I'm done, I have a nice little pile of lighter pine kindling.  I put 3 or 4 of these sticks at the bottom of the fireplace grate and then stack split up oak on top of it and with one match and five minutes, you have a roaring fire.


Nifty fire starters - heart pine.

Here is a visual representation of the ability of this to start a fire quickly.  You can also see the black smoke from the burning terpene, tar or pitch in the lighter pine.   


Nice fire that we'll settle down by for the evening

We're very careful to put the screen in front of the fire as the wood pops and embers can pop out of the fireplace and onto the carpet.  We learned this lesson the hard way.  Fortunately, we were around to put out the fire before it caused much damage.  Tricia is like a miracle worker.  She cut some pieces of carpet off of a remnant, glued it in the burned out hole and, voila, it looks as good as new.  I couldn't find it if you paid me to.  The key is to use the lighter pine to light your firewood - not your carpet.