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There are many ways to start a fire, and every experienced camper will have their own favorites, but here’s my list of top ten fire starters:
- Good strike-anywhere matches are increasingly difficult to find. I stock up on my favorite brand (Redbird from Eddy Match in Ontario) when we are in Canada for our canoe trips. Here’s another brand at Amazon with good reviews if you have trouble finding them elsewhere.
- Lightweight and reliable (if kept dry ) A disposable butane lighter may get a little sluggish at very low temperatures. Not as traditional or picturesque but if you must light a fire in difficult conditions a butane lighter can safe your life. I always have a couple stowed away in my gear for emergencies.
- Lifeboat matches are made by several different manufacturers, look for high quality ones. They burn for ten or twelve seconds, and that can make a big difference! Here’s a highly rated brand on Amazon I have used and can recommend.
- More interesting than practical, a nine volt battery and 0000 steel wool (the thinnest grade) are an old standby. Touching both poles of the battery to the steel wool creates an electrical short that heats and ignites the fine strands of steel wool.
- Flint and steel was the standard fire-lighter for centuries. Key to successful use is a good steel striker, a sharp piece of flint or similar stone and a ready supply of char cloth (carbonized cotton or linen cloth), and plenty of practice. Here’s a traditional flint and steel set at Amazon.
- The right materials and practiced technique are important to lighting a fire using friction methods. The bow and drill method is the most familiar, but there are other methods using friction. Rubbing two sticks together is not a viable method, unless one of them is a match! Here’s the directions that most helped me start a fire by friction.
- Ferrocerium is a man-made metallic material that sparks at temperatures at 3,000 °F when scraped with a knife blade or steel striker. Most all commercial strikers and the ‘flint’ of lighters are made of ferrocerium. Here’s a the Gerber Bear Grylls fire starter at Amazon.
- A small candle or a piece of a larger candle ought to be in any fire-lighting kit. Lightweight, small, and easy to find birthday candles (once lit, of course) burn for a few minutes and make lighting damp tinder a great deal more likely. (Now you know what to do with those candles left over from your next birthday!)
- Fill the chambers of a used egg carton with sawdust, a charcoal briquette, dryer lint, a roll of newspaper, etc. and fill with melted wax. Provides several minutes of steady flame for really difficult conditions.
- The bark of down, dead birch trees (don’t strip living trees unless your life depends on it) contains flammable resins. Once lit a roll of birch bark will burn hot and long enough to start a fire in wet conditions. If you don’t live near birch trees believe it our not you can buy birch bark from Amazon.
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Some of these are methods/tools for generating a spark, while others are tinder options…seems a bit of a mixed bag. How about two lists: firestarters and tinder?
How about not. That’s why they are called fire starters not fire lighters. While folks are arguing over what should be called what I’ll already have my fire started!
Looks like a second infographic is gonna be underway. Dryer lint is my favorite that I happened on by chance. With all the Troop activities, never saw it. Went to a Cub Scout event, and saw a car filled with stuff and thought WOW. Come to find out it was the ‘cooking’ presentation and he was ‘Be prepared’ for several other topics as well. He came back to refill his dryer lint bag as fire starting had become a HOT topic along with cooking. Ever since I’ve been glad to learn that little light trick that is so easy to refill.
I’ve long been a fan of setting up scouts (even at the Webelos level) with a ‘fire starter camping kit’ that consist of the following simply because I was tired of scout losing things especially a beloved piece of the Scouter’s flint set:
Walmart’s camping section: Orange Coleman match holder for a dollar and box of waterproof matches (do not buy the one with the whistle version as it breaks down later)
From ScoutStuff: the tried and true Scout’s flint set for 2.50
ziploc sandwich bags and a permanent marker
Its best to set up these kits before a meeting and award them after you’re gone of safety. The Orange Colemen comes with matches so put the spares in the ziploc for refills later. Share the waterproof matches between scouts/kits so each has 5. Explain the difference between red (regular) and green (waterproof) tip and remind the Scouts to use the green sparely as sometimes they are hard to find. Add in a cut side of the match box match striker and the scouts flint set. Dryer lint in the ziploc bag with filled orange Coleman on top and now the Scouts each have a first starter kit that is ORGANIZED and SECURE (hopefully) yet PREPARED…*grins
Another infographic in the works called the ‘Scouts Basic Organized Fire Starter Kit’? Let me know if you want me to do it. Also curious, as I LOVE your infographics, how long does it average you to complete one?
Dryer lint didn’t make the list because sometimes it works, but sometimes it’s just a smoldering hairball that does not burn long or hot enough to get things going. I think dryer lint is way over-rated.
My emergency bag is a sandwich-sized ziplock bag that ways a few ounces, it just rides along in whatever pack I am using at the time and contains the following:
-Mylar emergency blanket
-Disposable butane lighter.
-15 lifeboat matches (each is a pack of five matches in a smaller plastic bag with a square of striker material)
-One 3″ X 1/2″ candle
-2 Hexamine fuel tablets (Esbit tablets)
-2 glow sticks (Cyalume sticks)
-About three feet of sturdy duct tape (not the discount store type, real duct tape)
-Sail needles and stout thread
-A length of wire
-A hot glue stick
I’ve also got a small first aid bag in another ziplock that slips into the emergency ziploc.
I have carried this bag in one iteration or another for about twenty years and used the contents maybe three or four times and not during what I would call an actual emergency – more out of expediency.
For everyday (non emergency) fires I use a strike anywhere match and, if needed, a wax-based fire-starter.
Our Scouts carry something like this, it’s only for emergencies, when they light fires they use butane lighters or book matches most of the time (so far as I know, I am not usually close enough to see what they are doing).
For our trip to Canada this summer we’ll make up individual emergency packs much like these. We’ll use a ‘seal a meal’ vacuum sealer to keep them waterproof.
I think dryer lint needs to be opened up a bit so it can burn, but I understand the issues.
Esbit tabs are pretty cool, just tried those last month when I taught Intro to Outdoor Leader Skills. A quarter of one is a nice firestarter.
If you want a dual use item for a firestarter, take Fritos. They burn similarly to a candle, or perhaps, an oil lamp.
The reason dryer lint became so popular was mostly for beginner level Youth Leaders who have a bad habit of holding their hot spark pieces too far that their sparks couldn’t take. Dryer is also movable yet leaves nothing on their hot spark pieces.
Fritos???? Now that is something I gotta see, Youth Leaders giving up their hidden snacks!
Trick Birthday Candles–Blow them out and they relight themselves. In grocery stores most everywhere. Carry in your 10 essentials/survival gear.
I’m a big fan of the BIC lighter, though I now look for non-BIC versions that have a volume control.
Since this had both sources of fire and tinder…
Toilet paper.
Toilet paper with Chapstick rubbed into it (44% petroleum jelly).
In an emergency, alcohol-based hand sanitizer. Use the good stuff, over 60% alcohol. The Guide to Safe Scouting forbids liquid fuel for fire starting, so this is not for normal circumstances.
In an emergency, some of your bandana with Chapstick rubbed into it.
Dryer lint (keep it in a ziplock bag) will catch from a spark, like from an empty BIC lighter.
Candle stubs. We always have candles on the dinner table, so I have a reliable source of candle stubs.
A fuzzstick, including all the bits you peel off of it as you try to make the fuzz. Note: fuzzsticks keep the rest of the patrol occupied while you build the danged fire.
Beyond tinder, a couple of pieces of fatwood, especially a fatwood fuzzstick, can really get a fire going.
Don’t talk to me about birthday candles. My most recent birthday would have kept me in firestarter for a long, long time.
Oh, and my dryer lint has a good proportion of pet hair and synthetics. If yours is like that, stand upwind when you light it. It will burn just fine, but the fumes could be somewhere between nasty and unhealthy.
I would trade your 9 volt battery and steel wool for a magnifying glass. Working on the Wilderness Survival Merit Badge and three ways to start a fire – most of our Troop was surprised how easy you can start a fire (with the right tender) with a magnifying glass. One of our ASMs used his glasses.
With so many glasses being ‘plastic’, does this still work?
A favorite not on the list — short lengths of jute twine dipped in melted wax. The wax protects from dampness, but when they’re untwisted into a wad of jute fibers, they catch a spark with surprising vigor — the remaining wax prolongs the burn time.
That’s an excellent idea! I will try that for sure.
Personally, my favorite fire starter is the BernzOmatic plumber’s torch. From what I can see, it is permitted under the BSA’s chemical fuels policy, and it will get a fire going in a rainstorm.
It’s not the most elegant solution, but as a Cubmaster, elegant is sometimes way overrated.
A Dixie cup filled with sawdust and covered with wax works well also!
From Walmart (in stores)
https://www.scoutmastercg.com/top-ten-fire-starters-infographic/
BassPro:
http://www.basspro.com/Coghlans-Waterproof-Matches/product/10211028/
UCO
http://www.industrialrev.com/uco/
REI
http://www.rei.com/product/820267/uco-stormproof-match-kit
Here in Florida it rains. Regularly. But not usually all day and all night. So once it’s rained, in the afternoon, it’s time to start a fire in the evening. But everything is wet. We often use the rolled up newspaper, tied up with cotton string and soaked in paraffin was, fire starters. Good to go most every time.
The sawdust in cardboard egg crate ones are good also, but nowadays egg cartons tend to be foam.
My favorite fire starter is cotton balls soaked in petroleum jelly. Fluff them up a little and they will catch with a single strike from a fire steel and then burn for several minutes. I carry a few in a small zip-loc bag in my 10 essentials kit.