Finally, We Can Fire Our Clay

Tomorrow morning, after what feels like an entire summer of waiting, we can finally light the fire!

The Restricted Fire Zone covering Northwestern Ontario the last few months will be lifted at 12:01 a.m. this Friday. After months of very dry conditions and restrictions on outdoor burning, we’re finally going to have a chance to pit fire the wild Melgund clay we’ve been collecting and processing since the spring.

We’ve spent the summer sampling local clay, slaking it, straining it, drying it and making test tiles. We’ve learned a lot just getting the material ready. We’ve also been waiting. There wasn’t much point making plans for a pit fire while the entire region was under a fire restriction.

But now the tiles are ready and the timing has finally worked out!

The first firing is going to tell us something that the kiln can’t. A pit fire has its own conditions: wood, smoke, ash, changing airflow and temperatures that aren’t going to be the same from one part of the pit to another. We want to see how the different wild clay samples respond to that environment, what colours they develop and, most importantly, whether the tiles make it through the firing intact.

The Ministry of Natural Resources is reminding everyone that lifting the restrictions doesn’t mean the usual precautions disappear. Outdoor fires still need to follow Ontario’s rules, and the province will continue monitoring conditions. If fire danger increases again, restrictions can be brought back.

For us, though, it’s been a long wait. The clay has been sitting there, dry and ready, while we’ve been watching the fire restrictions.

Tomorrow we can finally put some of it in the ground, build a fire over it and see what we get.