Firewood Night Bonfire

Firewood per night for camping and bushcraft

A medium campfire kept going steadily through an 8-hour night will eat up roughly 8–12 kg of firewood. Where you land depends on the wood's density, how wet it is, and how you build the fire. Dry wood at 15–20% moisture gives you 4–5 MJ/kg of usable heat. Green wood, freshly cut, falls below 2 MJ/kg because so much of the energy is spent boiling off the water inside it.

Resinous softwoods like cedar and pine catch easily and throw quick heat, but they burn out fast and crackle, spitting sparks. Hardwoods such as oak, eucalyptus and ironbark burn slowly and leave long-lasting coals, which is what you want for cooking and for staying warm overnight. In practice the easy approach is to start with kindling and softwood, then keep it going with hardwood logs.

Applications

This comes up in camping logistics, scout outings, expedition planning and controlled burns (Brazilian ICMBio fire management, the US Forest Service Smokey Bear program). When you know what you'll actually burn, you avoid running short on a cold night and you also avoid cutting more than the forest can spare.

FAQ

How thick should the logs be? Keep a mix on hand: pencil-thick kindling, wrist-thick for the main burn, forearm-thick for slow coals. Splitting the wood speeds up drying and exposes more surface for the fire to grab.

Can I leave the fire unattended at night? No. Before you sleep, douse it with water and stir the ashes until they're cold to the touch. Most wildfires trace back to campfires left burning on their own.

How do I gather wood responsibly? Stick to Leave No Trace. Take only fallen, dead wood, never cut living trees, and check the park rules first. In Brazil a lot of conservation units ban open fires altogether, so bring a stove instead.