Dakota fire hole

[bugflipper]

When I was a kid there were a lot of moonshiners in the area. A lot of them used two fire methods that were pretty similar. The above ground one was called a rocket stove. It's not really primitive so I'll let you search for that one. Rocket stove made out of bricks is a good search term. That and the dakota hole use the same principal though. Air is fed to the fire which produced a whole lot of heat and no smoke when the fire is established. Sure if you don't want to be found no smoke is a good thing, but it's also good if you don't want the smoke blowing in your face. For boiling water and cooking I don't know of another fire design that is hotter. The rocket stove is above ground so more air is fed through it and is hotter than the dakota stove. But folks aren't going to tote bricks around while trekking so the dakota hole is much more likely to have a use if you learn it.

The Dakota hole is pretty simple. You dig a hole for your fire. Then you dig a tunnel at an angle, to the bottom of the first hole, from the side the wind is blowing on. Some folks just dig two holes and make a tunnel in between them. With dry wood it's possible to have no smoke in less than 10 seconds. Most of the time 1 minute is a long time for smoke with dry wood. With wet wood it takes longer, but once established the "smoke" coming up is steam and usually disappears a few feet above the ground. Here is a little video on one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYxxyCEFvZ8

[Don]

Yes....You can also find reference to the Dakota Fire Hole in a few survival manuals; I understand they work quite well.  I wish we could have had time to try these during Air Force Survival School in the Washington/Oregon area but they kept us on the move to much.   

[beowulf]

that dakota fire hole sounds familiar . I`ve actually made a primitive forge that way , cant do anything really big , but it works for small stuff !