Finding Fatwood

Note: This may seem like “old hat” to a lot of people that are already familiar with it. This is not being keystroked and published with the old timers, those of us that knew it and grew up with it as young kids, or the modern-day bushcraft crowd already familiar with it in mind. 

Those that I have in mind are the newcomers and neophytes in the world outdoors. David

I was a small child when I was first introduced to this thing called fatwood. (The photo to the left is a nice supply of fatwood that came from one stub of a standing dead pine here by the cabin.)

My childhood home, there on that small hardscrabble farm, was heated in the winter by a wood burning heater. I don’t remember a wood burning cookstove in the house. My older brothers grew up chopping and carrying wood for the cookstove in the house. We did have a wood burning cookstove in one of the outbuildings that saw a lot of use during canning season and when we were rendering lard.

We didn’t call it fatwood. I was taught that it was lighter’d. Some people call it fat lighter’d. It really doesn’t matter what it’s called. It’s all the same thing and I chopped a lot of pieces of it as a child with an old double bit ax that had a welded-on piece of pipe as a handle. The old ax lived by a pile of lighter’d stumps that my dad drug from the woods with the tractor.

These Southeastern woods, particularly these Lower Alabama woods, have lighter’d in them waiting to be picked up and used for an advantage in getting a fire going. 

Here's some pictures to help neophytes and newcomers begin recognizing fatwood.

Stumps

Fatwood stumps take on different appearances depending upon the type of pine. What remains is solid aged resin that has condensed.

Fallen Trees

This tree (or what's left of it) has been on the ground for a long time. Time and termites have taken about everything except the solidified resin.

Decaying Fallen Trees

This tree was broken off. Probably a tornado or one of the tropical cyclones that come through occasionally. This is the end near ground level. I broke off a piece to examine the quality of the fatwood and to show what it looks like.

Knots

This was a standing dead pine that fell a few weeks ago. While this pine is a variety that does not produce much fatwood, it still has knots of fatwood in it that can be chopped out and utilized. Knots are where limbs were attached. There will be concentrations of resin at these attachment points.

Straight Fatwood Poles

Fatwood poles such as this can be used for fire making material. I see them as valuable for other projects. Considering their resistance to decay and insects, poles such as this one are valuable woodland resources for shelter building and other camp projects where contact with the weather and ground will quickly rot other woods.

Lighter'd, fat lighter'd, or fatwood.

This is what that fresh sticky sap turns into as it ages over time.

Keep building those fires!