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Safety
In addition to finding a safe distance from other combustibles, there are other precautions you should take to ensure that your fire remains safe and manageable. Some experts suggest digging a shallow pit in the ground, which will remove flammable plants and twigs from the area. Once the pit is dug, setting up your fire within it will ensure that only the soil or sand comes into direct contact with your fire. Line the edge of your pit with closely packed stones to form an additional boundary between the base of your fire and the grass of vegetation beyond the fire pit. If you cannot dig a pit, clear an area of flammable vegetation by hand and build a boundary wall to contain your fire.
Tinder
You can use any dry, lightweight material for tinder if it burns easily. If you have old newspapers or other dry paper products, these may suffice. If not, collect dried leaves and grass, bark and twigs to use as tinder. Your tinder will sit at the center of your fire pit, beneath the kindling and the larger logs of the fire, and can simply be placed there in a pile.
Kindling
Kindling is typically wood of various sizes, larger than the twigs in your tinder pile but smaller than the large logs you use to complete the fire. Gather many small tinder sticks that are about as big around as your thumb, and lean them together over your tinder pile to form a conical or teepee-shaped structure. Gather larger kindling sticks which are about wrist-sized and begin to lay them down along the sides of your first structure. Place two larger kindling sticks on the ground, on opposite sides of the teepee, then place two more on those. Your second pair of large kindling sticks rests perpendicular to your first. When you are finished, your kindling should resemble the walls of a crude log cabin, built around the frame of a crude teepee.
Fuel
Your main source of fuel will be larger logs, such as those cut from small tree trunks or large branches. Do not cut down living trees for fuel or kindling. Not only is this destructive, but fresh wood will not burn as well as dead, dry wood. Find the fallen branches and trunks of dead trees and cut or break these into usable lengths. Lean a few fuel logs around the outside of your fire, with their ends touching to support each other. Do not lean them against the kindling for support, as their weight could topple the entire structure. You only need a few of these logs to start, and you can place more kindling on the ground between their base and the base of the kindling structure within to help spread flames to the larger logs.