Are usually much larger than camp-fires, and may be made by heaping the wood up in conical form ([Fig. 50]) with the kindling all ready for the torch in the center of the pile, or the wood may be piled up log cabin style ([Fig. 51]) with the kindling underneath the first floor.
In both of these forms there are air spaces purposely left between the sticks of wood, which insure a quick and ready draught the moment the flames start to flicker in the kindling.
The best form of council fire is shown by [Fig. 52], and known as the
Camp Meeting Torch
Because it was from a somewhat similar device at a camp meeting in Florida, that the author got the suggestion for his "torch fire." The platform is made of anything handy and is covered with a thick flooring of sod, sand or clay for the fire-place.
The tower is built exactly similar to the Boy Scout signal towers but on a smaller scale ([Fig. 52]).
Danger of Exploding Stones
However tempting a smooth rock may look as a convenient spot on which a fire may be built, do not fail to spread a few shovels of sand, earth or clay on the stone as a fire bed, for the damp rock on becoming heated may generate steam and either expand with some violence or burst like a bomb-shell and scatter far and wide the fragments, even endangering the lives of those gathered around the fire.