ive put my fire out and cant get it lit again.

[Booooooooooyhoo]

i lit a fire in a bag and when it caught up and was flaming i put slack on. its gone out. i pokes wholes in it and lit fire lighters and put them in but it didnt work. now all i have is red coals on bottom and coal and slack on top and a smoky living room.

can anyone help me?

[Booooooooooyhoo]

anyone?

[GentleOtter]

Pull the draft out if you have one.

Do you have any dry wood? The fire sounds like it is going if you have red coals - maybe the stuff on top needs a little while to burn through? Poke the middle but only a tiny bit.

[Booooooooooyhoo]

yes i have sticks of wood and more fire lighters, what do i do with them? no draft

[GentleOtter]

Is the fire really dead looking or is it still smoking?

[cassell]

Have you tried blowing from as low down as you can get into the coals that are glowing? That can sometimes get the flames going but tbh if you have put slack on I doubt you will get many flames. You could try scrapping the slack to one side iyswim and putting on some kindling and see if that will take.

[GentleOtter]

Hairdryer on lowest setting will whoomf it into life. Throw sticks on once you see flames then feed it small amounts of coal until it takes.

[Booooooooooyhoo]

its still smoking and little bits of red glowing. i held a newspaper over the front and it caught on for a minute but has gone again. will try moving the slack and putting on some sticks to see if they catch, thanks

[Booooooooooyhoo]

i took the coal and slack off, well all that wasnt red. and put some sticks on and then the coal back on when the sticks had caught on. its still very smoky but theres a wee flame licking through now, thank you all.

[mabh]

You probably don't need any more tips now! - but here's one: tissues are very flammable. If my fire acts up like yours, I bung on the contents of the waste paper basket (making sure there's no plastic etc in there), and they catch very quickly, then feed on screwed-up newspaper, and very dry sticks. If you haven't got a draft, it might be worth seeing if you can some old-fashioned hand bellows.

Ooh, it's an art, making fires!