Firewood Processor Forum

i was wondering how to get the wood burning in my indoor fireplace. i bought a bag of oak and hickory firewood from publix (supermarket). i put a little lighter fluid on it and lite it up, stayed lite for 5 min, the burned out. am i doing something wrong? do i need to put coals underneath it? or little pieces of wood to help it keep burning? thanks for the help

You need kindling (small pcs of wood) underneath. Start the kindling and slowly add bigger pcs of wood to it as it burns.

Pile up some newspaper, say 4 or 5 full sheets. Crumple it so it stays put. Then you need smaller pieces of wood, called kindling. It should be no more than 1" square, and it must be very dry. If you don't have any, use a lot more newspaper but that's the hard way. Pile the kindling across the newspaper, then do another pile at right angles on top, another pile if you have enough. Set fire to that. When it's about half burned, start putting larger pieces of wood on, don't disturb the pile too much. You can buy firestarters but I don't like them since they're usually some kind of petroleum product.