To Build a Fire

Last weekend, I went to New Hampshire to watch my husband and eleven other men over the age of 50 compete in the Reach the Beach Relay.  The race is run in 36 legs over 200 miles, beginning at Cannon Mountain and ending on the coast at Hampton Beach State Park.  Along the way, the course runs in or near other state parks,  one of them being White Lake State Park.

Each year, one of the other wives and I set up a campsite at White Lake State Park.  We put up a tent for the guys to rest in and cook a hot meal.  For several years, we cooked on a Coleman stove, but they really don’t throw out a huge amount of heat, and when you are cooking for 12 hungry men, it takes forever to heat up that quantity of food.  So, the last few years I have been cooking over an open fire.  We have always started a fire anyway for the guys to warm themselves.  One never knows what the weather will be like, and some years it has been cold enough to see our breath.

This year the problem wasn’t cold…it was rain…lots of rain.  When we arrived at the campgrounds on Friday afternoon, it was pouring.  I mean it was coming down in torrents.  The campsite was awash.  In spite of a gravel base, there were puddles, the picnic table was extremely wet, and a dry spot had to somehow be created.  We began by putting up the canopy part of a screen house over the picnic table so that we could dry off that area and have a place to work.  Marsha and I were both wearing raincoats and hats, but by the time the canopy was up, we were both soaked.

Marsha continued with the preparations at the picnic table, while I tried to make the fire.  The fire circle, although on gravel, had some puddles in it.  The matches, even though they had not been out in the rain, were soggy from the humidity.  When I purchased the wood at the registration building, the nice park ranger had throw in a fire starter block which seemed to be compressed sawdust.  This too was damp with humidity.  I knew every match I lit was going to be quickly snuffed by the downpour.  Fortunately, I had tossed a very large umbrella in the car.  I put this over the fire circle and crouched underneath it assuming the fire would not flare up so quickly that the umbrella caught on fire.

I started with a base of crumbled newspaper which rapidly became damp from the puddles and the humid air.  We had brought a few pieces of scrap wood along.  We used to bring all our own wood, including small twigs for kindling, but it is against the law to carry logs/parts of tree branches across state lines anymore.  The woods were too wet to be a source of kindling.  I pulled some small wood fragments from the logs I had purchase and broke the fire starter block into pieces.  About 20 matches later, I was beginning to feel desperate.  I began to recollect a short story, To Build a Fire, by Jack London, which I read way back in high school.  A man traveling in the bitter cold of the Yukon realizes that he either has to start a fire or die.  He ends up dying.  I wasn’t facing death….just 12 hungry men who were expecting HOT goulash.

Thoughts of the Jack London story gave way to the Bible story about Elijah and the prophets of Baal.  Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal to put a sacrifice on an altar, but not to light the fire.  Instead, they would each pray to their god, and the god who sent fire down on the altar, would be acknowledged as the true God.  The prophets of Baal didn’t have any luck with their god.  Elijah even dumped barrel after barrel of water on his altar, but when he called on God, there was a bolt of fire from the heavens and the sacrifice burned and all the water was licked up by the flames.  I needed a bolt of fire! 

I just kept praying and lighting more matches.  Finally, a piece of the paper caught fire, it spread to the sawdust fragments, and then to the small pieces of wood, and finally to the soft wood I had purchased.  After that was well established, I placed some of the purchased hardwood.  I picked up the umbrella and stood holding it over the fire until I was sure it wouldn’t immediately go out.  Then I quickly lowered the grate and placed the pot of goulash sauce over the flames.  The macaroni would be added later, so that it didn’t turn to mush.  Once the pot was in place, rain was not hitting the fire directly under the pot, so that portion of the fire could be preserved.

Dinner was about 30 minutes later than I had planned for the first van which arrived, but the guys ate their first course of salad and Italian bread, and then headed for the bath house to shower while the goulash finished heating.  After dinner they huddled under the canopy, which we had extended by attaching a tarp between the canopy frame and some nearby trees.  They said this looked like a still. 

Later when the second van-load of guys arrived, we were able to serve dinner promptly.  The fire was roaring and the rain had slowed down.  The second van of men rested for a couple of hours…some in the tent and some in the van…before driving to catch up with the relay and run their legs.  All that was left for Marsha and me was to clean up the mess and fight off the raccoons which apparently like the aroma of the goulash.

It wasn’t on my “bucket list,” but I can now say I have started a fire in a puddle under an umbrella.