Herbal Fire Starters

This is probably more useful outside, where loose newspaper and kindling can be tricky to light in windy conditions:

Here’s the perks of making my herbal fire starters:

Waste not, want not, right?? These are very frugal and they leave you with a “look at this totally cool thing I made” feeling!
There’s no petroleum jelly or wax or other funky chemicals that you really shouldn’t be breathing.
Herbal smoke purifies the air if you’re inside– during times of plagues, people used to burn rosemary all the time!
It keeps the mosquitoes away if you’re outside! Not a bite on us, in spite of a very healthy mosquito population, this year!
The smoke smells AMAZING! I’m one of those people who gets around any kind of smoke and gets an instant headache. That didn’t happen and I actually enjoyed the smell!

Dry Scotch broom burns like gasoline and is a great fire starter. Dry cedar leaves also take right off, for a quick fire.(what are they, leaves or needles, or neither ? I'm going with scale like leaves)

Herbal smoke purifies the air if you’re inside– during times of plagues, people used to burn rosemary all the time!

Doesn't mean it worked! People used to tout cigarettes as a healthy option.

Dry birch bark is also an awesome firestarter. I would caution against breathing smoke in general - even "herbal" etc - no matter what the source, it'll contain all sorts of volatile organics, tars and carcinogens simply by virtue of the combustion process. This is what carbon *does*. Better going for a nice clean complete burn in a RMH or TLUD and venting it to the Great Outside. Still, those are cool wee kindling bundles

I dry herbs inside brown paper lunch bags. When the herbs are dry i remove the leaves, etc. into bottles. The remains make great fire starters. I've also stuffed herb stems into TP or cut down paper towel cores.

Here is an instructional from Wallflower Studio Garden.



I love this, store your firestarter on the wall as a pretty!
Do you need a purpose for your overgrown tall weeds living mulch? Use some to tie up your firestarter.

We make a LOT of tinctures and herbal infused oil around here.   Even better than dried herbs are the marcs  (leftover after pressing out infused alcohol or oil).  They make delightful firestarters!  Not sure about indoor use,  but in the fire pit they are great.

If you want to make herbal incense,  that is one thing.  But if you are lighting a fire and can smell the smoke that is probably not a good thing. When you light a fire in your wood stove, fireplace, or RMH, the smoke needs to go up the chimney. If not, that can be dangerous and could indicate a problem that needs to be addressed.

Cris Fellows wrote:We make a LOT of tinctures and herbal infused oil around here.   Even better than dried herbs are the marcs  (leftover after pressing out infused alcohol or oil).  They make delightful firestarters!  Not sure about indoor use,  but in the fire pit they are great.

Cris, what a great idea! Those adorable bundles are far too pretty to burn! Using the leftovers from making something else that just happen to also include flammable liquids really appeals.

In Centennial, Wyoming, the sagebrush abounds. Rolling dried twigs inside a days worth of paper and wrapping fresh rosemary to secure it makes for instant fire starters.
As the green rosemary burns, there won’t be much fragrance. It’s the sage’s fragrance that will steal the show.
Sage works wonders, as a tea, for respiratory ailments. It has been scientifically proven that burning sage kills airborne bacteria.