Fatwood Crate These kindling sticks will help generate a good-looking fire in no time.
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You can buy Fatwood in a sack, crate, or box, depending on how much you need.
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Slivers of fatwood, used for starting fires. Using fatwood lighters while working in Olaus Magnus' Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus 1555 Fatwood holder made of clay with fatwood stump, lower Rhine area, Germany, 18th or 19th century Holder for kindling stick, Källsjö parish, Halland – Nordiska museet, Stockholm Fatwood, also known as "fat lighter", "lighter wood", "rich lighter", "pine knot", "lighter knot", "heart pine" or "lighter'd", is derived from the heartwood of pine trees. The stump (and tap root) that is left in the ground after a tree has fallen or has been cut is the primary source of fatwood, as the resin-impregnated heartwood becomes hard and rot-resistant over time after the death of the main tree. Other locations, such as the joints where limbs intersect the trunk, can also be harvested.
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Industrial uses for fatwood include production of turpentine; when fatwood is cooked down in a fire kiln, the heavier resin product that results is pine tar. The steam that vaporizes from this process is turned into a liquid that becomes turpentine.
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Coniferous tree sap is a viscous liquid, that contains terpene, a volatile hydrocarbon. Over time the evaporation of the terpene changes the state of the sap; it slowly gets thicker until it hardens into resin. New fatwood leaks the sticky sap, while in aged fatwood the sap has hardened and is no longer sticky. At every stage of the aging process, fatwood will burn readily, unless excessively damp.
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Because of the flammability of terpene, fatwood is prized for use as kindling in starting fires. It lights quickly even when wet, is very wind resistant, and burns hot enough to light larger pieces of wood. A small piece of fatwood can be used many times to create tinder by shaving small curls and using them to light other larger tinder. The pitch-soaked wood produces an oily, sooty smoke, and it is recommended that one should not cook on a fire until all the fatwood has completely burned out.
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Although most resinous pines can produce fatwood, in the southeastern United States the wood is commonly associated with longleaf pine (Pinus palustris), which historically was highly valued for its high pitch production.
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The commercial use of fatwood from stumps stemmed from the production of pitch and pine tar. In 1648, a company was formed in Sweden called Norrländska Tjärkompaniet (The Wood Tar Company of North Sweden), and was given exclusive export rights for pine tar by the King of Sweden.
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There are between 105 and 125 species classified as resinous pine trees around the world. Species usable for fatwood are distributed across a range including Eurasia, where they range from the Canary Islands, Iberian Peninsula and Scotland east to the Russian Far East. From the Philippines, Norway, Finland and Sweden (Scots Pine), and eastern Siberia (Siberian Dwarf Pine), and south to northernmost Africa. From the Himalaya and Southeast Asia, with one species (Sumatran Pine) just crossing the Equator in Sumatra.
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In North America, they range from 66°N in Canada (Jack Pine), to Central America to 12°N in Nicaragua (Caribbean Pine). The highest diversity in the genus occurs in Mexico and California. In the sub-tropics of the Southern Hemisphere, including Chile, Brazil, South Africa, Australia, Argentina and New Zealand, the trees are not indigenous but were introduced. Anywhere there is a pine tree or pine stump, there can be fatwood that can be found on top of the ground, but it is more concentrated and preserved in stumps.
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In the United States the pine tree, Pinus palustris, known as the longleaf pine, once covered as much as but due to clear cutting was reduced by between 95% and 97%. The trees grow very large (up to 150 feet), taking 100 to 150 years to mature and can live up to 500 years. The wood was prized and cutting resulted in many hundreds of thousands of stumps that are very resinous, do not rot, and eventually become fatwood. This ushered in a new industry for many years.
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Besides the supplies, the boat carried 20 sick soldiers, seven women, four children, and a guard of 20 armed soldiers. After a bloody massacre and scalping, only seven survived, one woman, and six soldiers who escaped by jumping into the river and swimming to the opposite shore, where friendly Creeks helped them reach safety at Camp Crawford on December 2, 1817. The children were killed by having their heads bashed against the sides of the boat. Scott was killed by having splinters of fatwood driven into his body and set afire, "an excruciating form of execution that had its roots deep in the ancient traditions of the Creek Indians".
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The stumps and taproots of old trees become saturated with resin and will not rot. Farmers sometimes find old buried stumps in fields, even in some that were cleared a century ago, and these usually are dug up and sold as fatwood, "fat lighter", or "lighter wood", which is in demand as kindling for fireplaces, wood stoves, and barbecue pits. In old-growth pine, the heartwood of the bole is often saturated in the same way. When boards are cut from the fat lighter wood, they are very heavy and will not rot, but buildings constructed of them are quite flammable and make extremely hot fires.
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