Log-Cabin Fire
Start this fire with two good-sized short sticks or logs. Place them about one foot apart parallel to each other. At each end across these lay two smaller sticks, and in the hollow square formed by the four sticks, put the tinder of cones, birch bark, or dry leaves.
Across the two upper sticks and over the tinder, make a grate by laying slender kindling sticks across from and resting on top of the two upper large sticks. Over the grate, at right angles to the sticks forming it, place more sticks of larger size. Continue in this way, building the log-cabin fire until the structure is one foot or so high, each layer being placed at right angles to the one beneath it. The fire must be lighted from beneath in the pile of tinder. I learned this method when on the Pacific slope. The fire burns quickly, and the log-cabin plan is a good one to follow when heating the bean hole, as the fire can be built over the hole, and in burning the red-hot coals will fall down into it, or the fire can be built directly in the hole; both ways are used by campers.