I had always heard about newspaper logs. I had a friend who bought those little steel rolling gadgets that they used to sell thirty years ago to make them. After he had made them, he had to soak them in water and then get them dried out again. Needless to say this whole process took weeks so you had to be really keen to do it and nobody I knew really did it. It was a grade A hassle.

             When I was growing up in England, World War II was on and we heated the living room with a coal fire. As a little boy, my granny told me that newspapers put the fire out. They flare up so nicely that it was hard to believe but they really do put a fire out. The paper chars and stops the draft and out goes the fire.

             I set out to do the experiments myself to develop a simple and reliable way of burning newspapers in a fireplace or stove without having the fire go out. If you merely roll up newspapers and put them on the fire, the roll comes unrolled and the fire goes out.  I started rolling up the paper and putting coat hanger wire round the outside to keep them rolled up. This worked pretty well and I observed that as soon as the paper got hot it took a set and no longer tried to unroll. All through graduate school I made fires with part wood and part newspaper.  It is possible to burn all newspaper logs but some wood is easier and better.

             The trouble with the coat hanger wire method is that you end up with an unsightly pile of old wire rings that hold the logs you make or you have to keep cutting up new coat hangers which entails finding them and finding your cutting pliers. The method works but it is not clean neat and tidy.

             Remember how I said the paper takes a set once it gets heated. Therein lieth the elegant solution. If a roll of papers can be prevented from unrolling in the first few minutes in the fire, then it does not unroll. Here then, is how to make newspaper logs:

             Take a pile of folded newspapers about 1½ inches tall and roll them up by hand. Interleave an unfolded paper or two in the end of the roll so that the unfolded papers wrap around the roll and hold everything in place. Put one of those elastic bands that come with newspapers around the roll. The roll will now stay together but will instantly come undone if you put it on the fire. Now wrap a section or two of newspaper around the outside of the roll. This protects the elastic band from the heat long enough for the papers to take a set.

             Roll up folded papers with an unfolded paper around the outside. Put an elastic band round it to keep it from coming undone. Wrap more paper round the outside to protect the elastic from the fire and burn it.

             A mix of real wood and newspaper logs makes the best fire.

            My essay, " The Imp up the Chimney" is about the physics of fire building and how to heat a cabin with an open fire. Recycle your old newspapers as household heating fuel and enjoy it.