Fire

Hello world! Today is Saturday, and a productive one at that. I woke up at 8:00 proceeded to prepare for my day. I left the house at 8:45 and dropped my mom off at the FIRE station where my dad works as a captain. Anywho, after that I got a hair cut and then went to a friend's house to do . . . homework! Ah, isn't homework great? Anyways, now I'm home again, home alone! Fun stuff, but it was cold when I got home, so I decided to get a FIRE going to warm up the house, hence the following post:

<<<<<<<WOOD STOVE FIRE>>>>>>>
I will now educate you city folk how to light a successful woodstove fire. Most steps are obvious, but the not-so-obvious steps are denoted by being red.

1. Clean out the ash tray beneath the woodstove (cleaning meaning empty, not scoured)
2. Use some type of cleaning solution (wet wipes, windex, 409, or just water) to clean the glass of the woodstove.
3. Open the damper. The damper, also known as the floo, allows the smoke to go up the chimney. On most woodstoves the damper lever is located on the left. Just pull it until it opens.
4. Turn on the air. The air lever is located opposite the damper lever. The air lever allows air to come from the chimney, underneath the fire, and feed the fire from below with Oxygen.
5. Place 3 wadded up pages of newspaper in the wood stove and light them. Close the woodstove. The purpose of doing this is to flush all of the cold air out of the chimney. Warming up the chimney allows your wood fire to start more efficently and quickly.
6. Open the front of the woodstove and push all of the embers from the warm-up paper to the side. Wad up about 4 full sized sheets of newspaper and place them in the center of the woodstove.
7. Apply kindlingthrough front of woodstove. Kindling is little bits of wood that help get the fire going. I use douglas fir, because kindling is only effective when it isn't a hardwood. In other words, don't use oak for kindling, but pine will work. Anyways, place about 6-9 pieces of kindling around your newspaper pile in the shape of a teepee.
8. Apply wood through front of woodstove. Use softwoods like fir and pine, and maybe maple, but try to avoid it. Don't put on round pieces just yet, only put on split wood. This gives the fire something to grip to. I put one on each side of the teepee, leaning into it, and one larger piece horizontally across the front leaning on the teepee. This front piece prevents flames directly touching the front glass.
9. Light a match. Light the center of the newspaper under the kindling. Light the edges of the paper as well if you'd like.
10. Close the front of the woodstove.
11. Now it's a waiting game. Your fire will either work or it won't. If it doesn't work and it goes out, just try again. Figure out what you did wrong and fix it. If it did work, keep on reading.
12. Wait until the fire reaches 500 degrees F. If your wood is going away before it gets to 500 degrees, put in more wood, only this time through the top of the woodstove.
13. Once the woodstove reaches 500 degrees put in some harder wood and some softwood rounds. Also, close the damper and turn off the air.
14. From now on, whenever you open the woodstove, make sure both the damper and air are on/open, otherwise you'll be filling your house with smoke.
15. From this point on, just continue to feed your fire hardwood. When it gets even hotter go ahead and put in some hardwood rounds.
16. That's it. That's how to make a successful woodstove fire.

<<<<<<<END WOOD STOVE FIRE>>>>>>>

Hope this comes in handy. Bye!