FIRE: YOUR LIFE MIGHT DEPEND ON IT.

Byline: Craig Medred Anchorage Daily News 

Down in the snow-covered grass of a rain-drenched and windy willow forest, teen-agers Jeremy Zastrow, Colin Olito and Jerry Zeek are trying to create the miracle of fire.

This is the mother of all survival tests. There are not many conditions worse than these for building a fire - but wilderness survival sometimes depends on this skill so often overlooked in today's fast-paced world. How to start a flame under any conditions is something that should be known by anyone planning a cold-weather venture into the backcountry.

With a couple dozen middle-school classmates gathered round, the trio already has gone through the list of top Alaska tinder and discovered the pickings here meager.

No birch bark. No spruce pitch. No dry leaves.

The kindling situation, fortunately, looks better. The willows that grow to 20 feet or more are dense enough that their summer canopy of leaves smothers plant life below. With the help of classmates, Zastrow, Olito and Zeek quickly gather an adequate supply of kindling. Then they make a bed of it on the ground.

Atop this bed, they will build their fire. The ground wood will keep the first, struggling flames from sinking into the wet, snowy ground and sputtering out.

Still, there is the problem of tinder. All of the students on this four-day wilderness intensive are carrying some sort of fire starter for emergencies, but the order of the day is to build a fire using only natural materials. Never mind the 32-degree temperatures and the rain mixing with slush driven down the Knik River valley by 30-mph winds.

After exhausting options using hollow-stemmed grasses and the nest of a mouse, the students are forced to break out their pocket knives and begin whittling. Inside the moist outer shell of the dead willow sticks there is dry, easily burnable wood.

Before this exercise began, the group was warned that patience is often one of the key requirements of fire-building, and now they are learning why. The students carve out a pile of matchstick-size wood slivers.

Then it is the moment of truth. One of the teen-agers strikes a match. There is flame, then more flame as the tinder catches.

The kindling begins to smolder. Zastrow, Zeek and Olito huff and puff at the base of the tiny but growing blaze, breathing the oxygen of life into the fire. And then, like a miracle, there is a fire.

Within minutes, it is burning well enough to consume sticks as thick as a finger, then a thumb, then a forearm. Tended and fed, it would be easy to keep this fire going through the night, but it is time to move on.

Back at camp in the evening, soaked from the day's hike, the students will learn about starting new fires from the coals of old fires and about the dangers of sparks on nylon and pricey Gore-Tex. But the pitfalls and costs of drying modern-day outdoor gear around an open fire is fodder for another story.