How to Find Dry Firewood
June 2026 · Dry Firewood · Prepared Wanderer · West With the Night
A nice rock and a breeze can be your friends.
I put the stove on this rock to catch a steady breeze, keeping the fire hot so I could burn damp wood. The wood itself (willow twigs) was collected on the way to this primo spot.
One of the first questions people ask about the Ganesha stove is, “can you always find dry wood for the stove?” Having spent years using only the Ganesha stove for backcountry cooking, I no longer have any anxiety about finding fuel. Not only can I find dry wood, but I can get the stove cranking in just a few minutes. Here are all my insider secrets!
Dry Conditions
This is the easiest situation, when you are in a spot with dry twigs up in the trees and on nearby shrubs. I find a good spot to set up, based mostly on whether I want sun or shade, and with the best view. I collect wood for a few minutes. You don’t need much: a double handful is plenty to boil water for several cups of your favorite hot beverage. For cooking food, maybe twice as much.
In western Colorado, almost every species of tree or shrub provides good fuel: conifers, aspens, cottonwoods, sagebrush, willow, and many more. I like pieces that range in diameter from that of my pinky to that of my thumb - call it from a quarter inch to half inch. Pieces up to 1” in diameter work well, but bigger than that and the pieces have so little surface area that they burn very slowly. Throw a handful in the stove, light it and you are good to go.
Stove filled with twigs and ready to light
When Wood is Scarce
This is when it’s good to remember that the stove can burn almost any biomass as long as it’s not soaking wet. In this case, I’ll start looking for fuel 10 or 15 minutes before I want to stop. It’s amazing how much fuel you can find, even in a barren landscape. Dung burns too - cow, elk and deer dung all burn well when they are fully dry. And no, it doesn’t smell bad.
It’s Wet, But Not Everything is Drenched
I do 2 things in this case. First, I start looking for fuel steadily as I hike. I’m looking for dry patches on the ground, which means the tree above that patch is keeping everything dry. Then I look for small branches in that dry zone, both up above in the sheltering tree and in shrubs down below. Even if you don’t see dry patches, the driest branches are going to be up against the trunks of the trees. It’s not very hard work to find them and, hey, aren’t you out there to get in touch with nature?
The second thing I do is find a rock that I can put the stove up on, a foot or two off the ground and ideally with a steady breeze. That will provide the extra air the fire needs to burn hot. The hotter the fire burns, the better it can handle damp wood.
Everything is Wet, Wet, Wet
This calls for all of the above, plus a few more tricks. If it’s been dry but pouring rain is imminent, I’ll collect a few handfuls of wood and put them in my pack to stay dry. I’ll also look for pitch balls - these form on the trunks of conifers and burn exceptionally well. I usually keep a few in with my fire starting kit. And finally, I collect wood - even if it’s wet - that is the diameter of a piece of string. These are small, dead shrubs, or the finest branches of conifers, juniper, sage and desert plants. They will burn quickly once ignited, but the important thing is that they will burn even when wet.
One more tool for wet conditions is to pack a few sticks of fatwood. This is pine that, because of its spot in the tree, has absorbed pitch. And because pine and pine pitch both burn exceptionally well, it can make the difference between standing around in the cold and wet vs. sipping hot coffee next to the Ganesha stove.
Many people pack an alcohol stove with a few ounces of fuel. The stove goes inside the Ganesha stove and works OK regardless of conditions. The caveat is that alcohol stoves generate far less heat than a wood fire, so it may take 10-15 minutes to bring a pot of water to a boil.
Up next month: the many different ways to start a fire 🔥
Influencer Spotlight: Wendell Adams, the Prepared Wanderer
Wendell Adams, based in Ohio, does in-depth, real-life reviews on YouTube as the Prepared Wanderer. I love the name - wandering is something I specialize in too, and it’s nice to be prepared. Wendell’s channel runs the gamut from bushcraft skills to how to create the best bug-out bag. He likes practical, budget-friendly gear that works for both beginners and experienced outdoorspeople.
Bushcrafters particularly like cooking Spam, and Wendell is no exception.
Wendell tested the Ganesha in the field, and found it to be an ideal long-term wilderness and bug-out stove. He was won over by its lightweight folding titanium design, the inner insert that doubles as a standalone day-pack stove, and a boil time of under five minutes.
Wendell also compared the Ganesha directly to a similarly sized Firebox stove and found the Firebox to be significantly heavier, even in its titanium version. He gave the edge to the Ganesha for its gasification advantage (cleaner burn, less smoke, less fuel), and for its two-in-one design that lets the inner insert serve as a standalone day-pack stove. You can watch the review on YouTube here.
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Thanks to subscriber Thaddeus Ward for this month’s photo, taken in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee
What to Read
West With the Night, by Beryl Markham. This is a magical memoir of Beryl’s days in Kenya (then British East Africa) in the early 1900s. She became an accomplished horsewoman, incredible bush pilot, and made money searching for elephants from a tiny plane. Later, she became the first person to fly nonstop from Europe to America, and the first woman to fly solo east to west across the Atlantic.
“"Never turn back and never believe that an hour you remember is a better hour because it is dead. Passed years seem safe ones, vanquished ones, while the future lives in a cloud, formidable from a distance. The cloud clears as you enter it." -Beryl Markham
More info at ganeshastove.com. Use code DISPATCH10 for 10% off.