Dakota Fire Hole

The dakota fire hole allows a more stealthy fire because the flames are hidden underground and there's potentially less smoke created.

To make a dakota fire hole, start by digging a hole about two feet down. Bear in mind that two feet is about arm's length. Using a hand shovel, digging the first few inches can be hard due to plant roots, but beyond that you typically have clay in the Rocky Mount area, which is not hard to dig.

Then dig a skinny hole next to it at an angle so that the two holes are only an inch or two apart at the bottom. This will be the air hole so the fire can breathe. Use a short piece of stick or a screwdriver or something to dig out the clay or dirt to join the holes at the bottom.

You build the fire in the larger, vertical hole. The hot air rising from the fire continuously pulls in fresh air to feed the fire, producing a hotter, cleaner fire. This is called the chimney effect or stack effect.

It is said you should make your dakota fire hole under a tree or some low branches for stealth. To me, it seemed wishful to think a tree would help hide your smoke, but when I used my dakota fire holes to try to repel mosquitos, I put a pot full of dirt or water over the fire so the smoke would be cooled down and wouldn't rise as much. A tree could serve a similar purpose, especially if covered in dew, cooling the smoke so it doesn't rise as much. And a fire making smoke that moves sideways is harder to locate than the one with smoke going straight up.

To use a dakota fire hole to make smoke that you can use for repelling mosquitoes, signalling, food preservation, or whatever, just get the fire burning hot first, and then cover up the air hole to choke the fire. You might need to cover both holes for a few seconds to get the flames to die out. A fire in a hole can breathe a little even without a dedicated airhole, so that's why you need to cover both holes to kill the flames quick.

Lots of people like to cook on a storebought grill with storebought charcoal and a bunch of storebought petroleum-based lighter fluid that came from some big refinery, and they even consider it macho, but imagine cooking on a fire made from wood gathered from your yard or some nearby woods. That's real caveman, and it's probably healthier.

The problem with cooking over a dakota fire hole is that it's so low that bugs can jump in your food and pets can be a concern. I'm not sure how to deal with these problems. Maybe build a wall around your hole area or build it up off the ground.

My carport is getting full of fallen sticks and limbs that I've gathered to dry out to fuel my dakota fire holes. To reduce fire hazard, I broke up some of them and put them in a barrel. Many fallen sticks are already dry enough to burn. Others can be stored under a shelter for seasoning.

The dakota fire hole is efficient and can burn sticks that are small enough to not require any chopping. Just break them into pieces of the right length using your hands.

In many places, including the city of Rocky Mount I think, an open fire is illegal. But a dakota fire hole is not really an open fire because it's contained. So I think it should be no more illegal than a fire in a grill. An open fire is dangerous because wind can easily cause it to spread. The dakota fire hole seems fairly safe, even where there's a lot of leaves on the ground, because everything stays in the hole, even if the wind gusts hard. Still, I would rake any leaves out of the immediate area before burning.

I also use my dakota fire hole to make ash for gardening. Ash makes the soil more alkaline, so plants that prefer acidic soils won't appreciate too much ash, but you'll notice that grass fires cause lush growth, and that's because of the ash fertilizing the plants. Ash doesn't contain nitrogen, which is very important for many plants, but it does contain every mineral needed by plants. Ash can contain higher concentrations of radioactive elements or other harmful minerals such as lead or arsenic, so only use good ash and don't overdo it. For plants that like acidic soils, add some green compost along with the ash to avoid making the soil more alkaline.