Ever burn a hollow log?

When our friends cut down an old tree on their property, they found that part of the tree was hollow. They immediately sawed it into sections to save for burning. They know how much I love to watch a hollow log burn, so we burned one of the logs last night. 

This one was really neat. It was hollow and it had an opening in one of the sides. When they threw the log into the fire and it started to catch, it almost looked like a "window' in the log. Rick took a couple pictures for me to post. It would have been better had it been dark, but it was gorgeous anyway. 


He took this picture because you could see the flames start to lick outside the window in the log. Way cool!


As the night went on, the log kept burning. And then around 10:00 or so, it finally split into two pieces. Little cracks would form along the sides and then the flames would start to lick around the cracks. And the smoke would creep out. after it finally split and started to die down, we added more wood, built the fire back up to a roar, and then watched it burn down again.

I grew up camping. And always on our last night of camping, Dad would save the best hollow log for last. We would sit by the fire for hours, sometimes curled up in blankets because it was so cold up in the mountains. We had some great hollow logs!

They still have several pieces of the log left for future fires this summer.   

I've never seen anything like that before.  Those are great photos.  What a wonderful way to spend the evening.

I've never seen / heard of this before - how cool is that! Thanks for sharing.

I've never heard of burning a hollow log before either.  Beautiful!

Add me to the "never seen it" list!  Wow!  Fire can be very relaxing to look at; in controlled situations of course!

Our old neighbor worked for a tree company and used to bring wood home all the time to burn for heat.  Too bad they moved or I'd ask him to look for a hollow log!

Isn't it amazing?! And it's just way cool. I love to sit and watch a fire. Rick and I have talked for quite a while about getting some kind of a fire pit for the back yard, but we're just not sure where we'd put one. 

You don't find a lot of hollow logs, so when you do, you have to just sit down and enjoy them. Each one is different. One year, my dad found a 4-foot long (or tall) hollow log. He didn't cut it. And one night, after dinner, we were all sitting around the fire and he brought this log out. Rick said my eyes got huge. He settled the coals down and placed the log on the fire. It burned, with a flame leaping out of the top of the log, until 3:00 in the morning! Evidently, it was a little damp, because you could hear it singing....that's what we always called the sound a log makes sometimes when it's a little damp. And the colors! You can see all different colors in the flames. It's really beautiful.

I used to sit with my feet on top of the concrete fire ring at the camp site. Dad would always tell me that my shoes were going to burn. And I'd pooh-pooh him. Well, one night, my sister sat with her feet propped up on the ring. She got up to go to the rest room and the bottoms of her sneakers had started to "melt". Her sneakers were hot! And after that? I still sat with my feet propped up on the ring. And Dad would sit there and shake his head at me.

Our friends knew my parents from their old camping days. And so Saturday night was spent talking about my Dad and his campfires.    He would have loved our log with the little "window". He just loved a good camp fire. 

How cool!  I've also never seen anything like that.  i have friends that love to build fires so I'll be putting the word out.

I get hollow logs in my firewood supply all the time. They look just as cool laying on their side in the wood stove. It looks like an underpowered rocket trying to take off.

That's very cool, Pam! I've never seen that before.