Fire has always been central to backcountry life in Ontario. It cooks food, dries wet gear, warms cold bodies, and anchors the social life of camp in a way that a headlamp and a gas stove never will. But fire in the backcountry also carries real responsibility — for the land, for the forest, and for the people who come after you. Building fire well means building it safely, efficiently, and with full awareness of the conditions and regulations that govern fire use in Ontario's wild places.
Types of Fires
The cooking fire is small, hot, and controlled. You want a concentrated bed of coals, not a roaring bonfire. Build a small teepee of dry kindling, let it burn down to coals, then cook over the coal bed or on a lightweight grill balanced on rocks. A cooking fire uses surprisingly little wood — two or three wrist-thick pieces will produce enough coals for a full meal. The classic "two log" setup works well: place two green or wet logs parallel with a gap between them, build your fire in the gap, and set your pot across the logs as a natural stove.
The warming fire is larger and longer-burning, designed to throw heat outward. Build this as a log cabin or lean-to structure with progressively larger pieces of wood. A reflector — a stack of green logs, a large rock face, or even an emergency blanket rigged behind the fire — bounces heat toward your seating area and roughly doubles the fire's effective warmth. On cold fall evenings on the Shield, a well-built warming fire with a rock reflector behind it is one of the genuine pleasures of backcountry life.
The signal fire is for emergencies only. The goal is maximum visibility — smoke during daylight, flame at night. Once you have a strong base fire, add green boughs (spruce and pine produce thick white smoke), damp leaves, or moss. Three signal fires in a triangle is the international distress signal, though in practice you'll likely only have time and materials for one. In a genuine emergency in Ontario's backcountry, a signal fire supplements your other emergency communication — a satellite communicator like a Garmin inReach is far more reliable for summoning help.
Tinder, Kindling, and Fuel Selection
Understanding Ontario's trees and their fire properties is practical knowledge that makes fire building dramatically easier.
Tinder is the material that catches the initial flame. In Ontario's forests, the best natural tinders are:
Birch bark — the papery outer bark of white birch contains oils that burn hot and fast, even when damp. Peel thin strips from dead, downed birch trees (never strip bark from living trees — it damages them permanently and violates Leave No Trace principles). Birch bark is the single best natural fire starter in the Ontario bush, and experienced trippers keep a handful in a dry bag at all times.
Dead standing cedar and pine — the fine, fibrous inner bark shreds into excellent tinder. Pull thin strips and fluff them into a loose bundle. Dead cedar bark catches a spark easily and transitions to flame quickly.
Resin-saturated wood — look for chunks of dried pine or spruce sap on dead trees, or splits of wood saturated with resin (often called "fatwood"). These burn hot and long, bridging the gap between tinder and kindling. In Ontario's boreal forest, dead spruce stumps often have resin-rich heartwood at the base that makes superb fire starter.
Kindling is pencil-thin to finger-thick dry wood that catches from the tinder and builds the fire's heat. Dead, dry twigs from the lower branches of spruce and pine trees — the ones that snap cleanly — are ideal. Gather twice as much kindling as you think you need. The most common fire-building failure is running out of kindling before the fire is established and trying to jump to fuel wood too early.
Fuel is the larger wood that sustains the fire. In Ontario, hardwoods (maple, oak, ironwood) burn longest and hottest but are often harder to find in quantities at established backcountry campsites. Softwoods (spruce, pine, cedar, poplar) are more available and catch more easily but burn faster and produce more sparks. For cooking, you want a hot, low-spark wood. For a warming fire, anything dry will do.
Wet Weather Fire Starting
Starting a fire in the rain is the test that separates backcountry competence from wishful thinking. It's not impossible, but it requires preparation and patience.
Carry dedicated fire starters. Commercial options like WetFire cubes, cotton balls soaked in petroleum jelly, or wax-dipped cardboard burn hot and long enough to dry and ignite damp kindling. Carry these in a waterproof container alongside a reliable lighter (Bic lighters work well) and a backup — either a second lighter or a ferrocerium rod that works when wet.
Build your fire under shelter when possible. A tarp pitched over the fire area, your upturned canoe as a wind break, or an overhanging rock face all help. If none of these are available, build a small platform of wrist-thick sticks to lift your fire off the wet ground, and use your body as a wind shield while the tinder catches.
Process your wood before you try to light anything. Split pieces to expose dry interiors. Shave thin curls from the dry centre of a split log (called "feather sticks"). Have a full progression ready — tinder, fine kindling, coarse kindling, small fuel — before you strike a match. Lighting a fire in the rain and then scrambling for the next size of wood while your tiny flame dies is a recipe for frustration and wasted matches.
Fire Safety and Ontario Fire Bans
Ontario's Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF) manages fire risk across the province and issues fire bans when conditions warrant. During a fire ban, all open fires — including campfires — are prohibited. Portable stoves with manufactured fuel (white gas, propane, alcohol, canister fuel) are generally still permitted during bans, though you should confirm current rules.
Check the current fire conditions before every trip at ontario.ca/page/forest-fires. The MNRF fire hazard map is updated daily during fire season and shows conditions by region. If your trip area is under a Restricted Fire Zone (RFZ) designation, no fires of any kind are permitted, and you could face significant fines.
Even without a ban, practice fire safety:
Build fires only in existing fire rings or on bare rock. Never build a fire on forest duff, near exposed roots, or in peaty soil — these can smoulder underground and reignite days later. On Shield rock, fire is generally safe from spread, but the heat can permanently scar the rock surface, so use an existing fire pit when available.
Keep your fire small. A fire that's bigger than you need is harder to control and produces more impact. You don't need a bonfire — you need a cooking fire or a small warming fire.
Never leave a fire unattended. Wind shifts happen suddenly on Ontario lakes, and a fire that seemed safe can throw sparks into dry ground cover in an instant.
Campfire Alternatives
A backcountry stove should be on every trip regardless of whether you plan to cook over a fire. Stoves are faster, more reliable, work during fire bans, and produce zero impact.
For Ontario three-season trips, a canister stove (like the MSR PocketRocket or Jetboil) is lightweight, simple, and boils water fast. Canister fuel is widely available at outfitters in Algonquin and other tripping areas. The downside is poor cold-weather performance — below about 5 degrees Celsius, the fuel pressure in the canister drops and output suffers.
For shoulder season and winter trips, a white gas stove (MSR WhisperLite, Optimus Nova) works reliably in any temperature. These require priming and more maintenance but are indestructible and powerful. On extended cold-weather trips in Ontario, a white gas stove is essential — melting snow for water requires enormous amounts of fuel and heat that canister stoves can't deliver in the cold.
Alcohol stoves (like the Trangia) are quiet, lightweight, and have no moving parts to fail. They're slower than other options and less fuel-efficient, but for solo trips where you're only boiling water for dehydrated meals, they work well.
Putting Out a Fire Properly
This is where most fire-related damage and danger comes from: inadequately extinguished fires. "Out" means out — not smouldering, not warm, completely dead.
Drown the fire with water. Stir the ashes with a stick while pouring water over them. Keep adding water and stirring until the hissing stops completely. Feel the ash bed with the back of your hand (carefully, from above — don't plunge your hand in). If it's warm, add more water. In a properly extinguished fire, the ashes should be cold and soupy.
If water is scarce, separate the coals and spread them out so they cool faster. Cover with mineral soil (not forest duff, which can catch and smoulder). Never bury a fire in duff and walk away — this is how forest fires start.
On your last morning at a campsite, plan time for fire extinguishment. It takes longer than you think, and leaving a hot fire pit because you want to get paddling is irresponsible. The next group to use that site — and the forest around it — is counting on you to do this right.