At the start of chapter twelve Jack lit a fire in an attempt to smoke Ralph out of his hiding place in the thicket close to castle rock. The fire simply got out of control, Jack did not intend to set fire to the entire island, including all the fruit trees and the pigs.
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I presume that you are referring to the start of chapter 3: Huts on the beach where Jack is alone in the forest. The answer is that Jack is trying to hunt pigs.
he burned a candle stick.
The hunters were responsible for keeping the signal fire lit but, they in Chapter 4 they let it burn out which destroyed an early survival because a ship went past.
Too quote directly from the book...Here they paused and examined the bushes around them curiously. Simon spoke first. "Like candles. Candle bushes. Candle buds." Ralph and Jack dismiss the bushes and Ralph actually says, "You couldn't light them... They just look like candles." This entire episode is an allusion to a passage from the book "The Coral Island." In that book the boys named Jack, Ralph (Golding reused those names deliberately) and Peterkin also find "Candle buds." The difference being that the boy called Jack, in The Coral island, is a well read boy who informs his companions that the nuts from this bush can be dried out and threaded onto a sting where they will burn when lit, just like real candles.
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