Using Tinder Fungus

If you spend much time in the backwoods, you’ve seen these fungus brackets growing on trees. They grow on the bark of older trees that are partially dead. They’re called Hoof Fungus, or Horseshoe Fungus, and they’re great for getting a warm campfire started. After you have processed them they catch and hold the tiniest spark and they smolder for a really long time.

Fomes fomentarius, also called a Tinder Conk is found throughout America and Europe. They’re light gray to almost black. Although they are sometimes used in herbal medicine (Chaga), I use them for fire tinder.

You can break these conks off the tree with the back of your hatchet with a good hard whack. The outer hardened layer is peeled back with a sharp knife to expose the inner bark which is a thin brown line known as amadou.

Sometimes if I bring them home I’ll soak the conk in water to soften up the outer shell and make it easier to peel them. Other times I’ll add a little potassium nitrate to the water and boil them for a while. This makes the amadou really flammable and it won’t smolder as long, but rather intensifies the coal of fire.

Amadou can be pounded gently until it’s flattened. The old school fly fishermen used amadou to dry the water out of their flies before coating them in a floatant to keep them on the surface film of the rivers to better imitate an insect that has just fallen into the water. I prefer the chunks of amadou to get a long burning coal for starting a camp fire on a windy or rainy day.

The tiniest chunk the size of a fingernail is enough to get a decent fire going when the rest of your tinder is slightly damp.