Newb here, I’ve run into a major problem with fires that I can’t figure out. In my current run I’ve found an amazing fortified house and made it my base. It has a fireplace and I’ve been using it to cook all my food and craft, which so far has worked perfectly.
But I’ve suddenly run into a problem with fires going out really quickly. I do what I normally do and pile a bunch of burnable stuff onto the fireplace tile and set it on fire. But no matter how much or little I put on the tile, it says it’ll burn out within half an hour or so and promptly does. It doesn’t burn up all the wood on the tile, it just sort of peters out.
I tried going outside, digging a deep pit and trying it there with the same result. Fire burns for a brief moment, and then goes out without using up all the fuel. It’s not raining, the tile doesn’t have any liquids on it, and it’s in spring so it’s not particularly cold. I also designated a tile next to me as the firewood source and watched as my guy almost immediately started piling stuff onto the fire but it still went out really quickly without burning everything. I also tried removing ash, thinking that might be blocking it.
What could be going on? If I can’t fix it I’ll probably have to say goodbye to this run since it’s made it pretty much impossibe to craft or cook efficiently without a stable fire.
It might be that, same as with real fires, you need to start a fire with smaller fuel sources (tinder, rags, splintered woods, …) until it burns intense enough.
If I remember correctly, it needs at least a fire of “normal strenght” (as in; not a small fire) to light logs or similar stuff on fire.
By the way: You can also use butchery refuse as a fuel source.
Maybe there’s something finicky with burning code? Try using firewood source instead, I’m always using it and haven’t had problems with fire whatsoever. Go to construction menu ‘*’, double left-arrow to “others” category, select “mark firewood source”, select some place couple tiles away from when you want to start a fire. Then throw all you wood except one piece there, and light that one piece in your actual fireplace. See if it helps.