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Great read. If you are interested in seeing charcoal production in action (on a small scale), Primitive Technology [0] has a nice short video walking through it

• moneytide1 6y ago
  I recently encountered a small area where there had been a brush fire (could have occurred long ago). I was able to crumble off the outer inch of blackened tree branch stubs and the charcoal seemed fairly consistent. I would have to burn it to test how thoroughly it had been cooked - good charcoal does not give off much smoke because the heat burns away most everything but the carbon. Charcoal for water filtering, cooking, and smelting is probably very abundant in the Pacific Northwest right now....