Yeah, do I ever know what you mean. I have a good hiking buddy that can burn a weeks worth of firewood before the night's over and there's not much you can do to stop him. I finally decided I would gather enough wood to last me for the evening, which he'll burn all at once, and after that he can go get as much wood as he wants.

I've sat and watched him smother some pretty good going fires I've just started more than a few times. I just sit and grin when he starts doing that, and generally don't waste the chance to tell him how good he just put our fire out.

On the plus side, once it's going strong he'll head out in the black of night to go find more sticks to burn, and you never get cold when you're camping out with him.

When I'm solo, and out bushwhacking, I lay of base of thick sticks down, all lined up tight together, and then stack my firewood on top of that, either log cabin or pyramid style to get it started. This base does three things, it gets my firewood off of the cold wet ground, it lays the foundation for a good bed of coals, and it creates channels for air to come in under my firewood. Getting (and keeping) a hot bed of coals going reduces smoke a lot too.

You need a really big and hot bed of coals to burn logs without getting smoked out. I rarely burn anything bigger than 3 inches in diameter when I'm backpacking. Most of my fuel will be smaller than that. If I find a suitable chunk of a log I will set it behind my layer of sticks on the ground and build my fire in front of it. That helps reflect some heat my way and keeps the breeze off of my bed of coals, and it gives me a place to prop up damp sticks behind it and dry them out, and prop up sticks front, over the coals, so they burn with less smoke.

I'm one of the few here that almost always has a campfire, hence the tent I made. But we can do that here in the Ozarks without burning down the forests or scarring the land and I don't make big huge fires anyway. I like small campfires that I can hunker down over and feed sticks while enjoying the night.

I've walked away from my campfires at night just to see how far I have to go before I can't see it. Here, you don't have to go far at all. Sometimes less than 150 ft. If you're close to a white limestone cliff face they will light it up and make them glow. I just love the way a small campfire lights up the forest and gives off so much warmth. They are one of the real joys of backpacking for me and I've spent a lot of time studying them...