When starting your fire, it’s important to recognize your three primary components: airflow, fuel, and heat.
Tinder is smaller and starts a fire; kindling is larger and sustains a fire. Tinder is composed of small, fast-igniting materials such as newspaper, dried foliage, or bark. Kindling is composed of larger materials that burn more slowly, such as sticks, logs, and other large, flammable debris.
The best sustaining strategy for your fire considers a variety of materials – tinder, kindling, and fuel – and how to gather, store, and implement those materials. To start a fire, it’s important to know the difference between tinder and kindling.
Use of Tinder vs Kindling
Tinder is meant to begin the flame and can be readily ignited using sparks and small flames, and is typically placed in the center of a firepit. Kindling’s role in sustaining a fire means that it is typically stacked above the tinder while still allowing airflow.
As tinder burns out quickly, it is needed early on, and less than kindling. Its short lifespan also means kindling is necessary for the upkeep of a fire. Kindling burns more slowly, but more of it is initially required to get a fire going.
The amount you’ll need of tinder and kindling is an important consideration when gathering your fire materials. Tinder should be initially gathered initially, while kindling will consistently need to be upkept.
Acquiring Tinder and Kindling – Material Differences
In acquiring your materials, dampness and quantity are limiting factors. Dampness will reduce the combustibility of materials and is a critical factor in foraging for tinder.
When foraging for tinder, keep an eye out for dead trees for dry bark, and for large quantities of dry leaves. Tinder may, if quantity is a concern, be produced from kindling by breaking down the dry kindling with a tool such as a pocketknife into small, easily combustible pieces.
This can be time-consuming and makes naturally occurring tinder such as large quantities of dry leaves or bark a more effective source. If no natural source of tinder is available and you have no tools to produce it from kindling, scraps of newspaper, lint, or even foods such as chips can make for effective tinder.
Kindling is more readily found in nature in large quantities, as the majority of natural debris is kindling. Unlike with tinder, dampness is not as much of a concern with kindling due to its longer exposure to the fire.
Kindling vs Tinder: Differences In Size
While kindling is typically larger, tinder can be small enough to miss. In general, tinder should be no thicker than a pencil, while kindling can be quite a bit larger.
Finer materials like lint and sawdust make for great tinder, but their small size makes them ineffective kindling. Kindling, on the other hand, tends towards thicker branches and debris. This size difference makes visual distinction an easy and accessible method for separating your tinder and kindling for even the inexperienced fire starter.
Larger size equates to longer burn time, and is important for the following reasons:
- Tinder needs to ignite quickly, and thin materials have a larger surface area ratio.
- Kindling needs to burn slowly, and dense, thick materials make that possible.
- Tinder must be dry, and smaller materials dry faster if you’re only able to find damp material.
- Larger sizes are easier to spot, making your kindling acquisition convenient and quick.
Size can be an easy method of distinction but is also important for other reasons, such as storage.
Storing Tinder and Kindling
If you intend to ignite fires at your site long-term or make another fire in the near future, storage for your tinder and kindling must be considered. When storing your tinder and kindling, fire safety and space efficiency are the most important factors.
While materials like sawdust make for great tinder, fine materials are incredibly volatile and if exposed to heat, sparks, or friction, can ignite quickly and burn – potentially setting other things on fire. To avoid this danger, your tinder should always be stored in cool, dry places to avoid accidental ignition, avoiding sources of friction, sparks, and heat.
Containers such as cans, mason jars, tins, and plastic bags are ideal carriers to maximize your tinder storage and safety, as they can be closed to prevent exposure to moisture.
Kindling doesn’t carry the same risk factors that tinder does due to its less volatile, less combustible nature, but must still be kept away from sources of ignition such as sparks or friction. Kindling should still be kept dry whenever possible to make ignition faster and easier and can be easily stored in bundles to save space and make transportation easy.
Summary: Tinder vs Kindling
Tinder and kindling are both important to start a fire, and their differences are important too.
Tinder is meant to start a fire, meaning that it must be easy to ignite and burn. Because of this, tinder must be dry and fine in nature, as smaller, drier materials have greater flammability and combustibility. However, this makes tinder short-lived and unsustainable – dangerous too, so quantity and storage safety must be taken into account for your tinder.
Kindling, on the other hand, can be larger and doesn’t need to be quite as dry – something that comes from its role as a fire sustainer. Kindling is also easier and safer to store because of its ability to be kept in bundles, eased further by being a more sustainable and commonly found resource.
In a fire, tinder should be lit before kindling to provide the heat required to ignite your kindling. Kindling should be stacked above your tinder in one of many methods, all providing the airflow necessary to the upkeep of a fire, which requires a constant source of available oxygen to continue burning.
Once your kindling is burning and your flame is sizable, you can add damp – but not drenched – materials without issue and are ready to add larger fuel such as logs and boards to sustain your fire long term.
