Kaze Uta Budo Kai Forum Archive

When I'm backpacking, I always carry a handful of essential items to start a fire. This is one area I don't cut corners. Here's a few ideas for the next time you're headed off trail. These are a few of my ideas, and is by no means to be considered exhaustive.

ALWAYS try your stuff before you leave home. This cannot be stressed enough. Verify your matches are good, your lighters work, etc.

There are several basic components to successfully starting a fire. We need something to create a spark, tinder for the spark to catch, and piles of wood. The piles should be arranged based on size, starting with small pencil size pieces of wood, working your way up to finger size and finally wrist size.

The spark (or initial application of fire) is the first element.

• The trusty BIC lighter is fine, although it will likely go kaput if it gets wet. Make sure yours has a clear window to view the fuel level.[/*:m:1rcto2lt]
  
• Strike-anywhere matches in a waterproof case are a great idea as a backup. You can apply a little clear nail polish to the match heads to help waterproof them if you wish.[/*:m:1rcto2lt]
  
• Waterproof matches often require a specific striker surface (like the one on the box, just like a strike-on-box only match). This surface will likely go kaput if it gets wet. [/*:m:1rcto2lt]
  
• The trusty flint-and-steel (actually, it's ferrocerium rod) throws nice sparks and works regardless of whether it's wet or not. The Fire Steeland BlastMatch are a couple of examples.[/*:m:1rcto2lt]
  
• Fire can even be made from a soda can and a bar of chocolate or ice.[/*:m:1rcto2lt]

Tinder is the second element.

• Perhaps the easiest dirty trick in the book is a vaseline soaked cotton ball. Just rub a cotton ball thoroughly with vaseline and store in a ziploc bag. Fluff well before applying your spark, and you have 3-5 minutes of fire.[/*:m:1rcto2lt]
  
• Magnesium Firestarter. A staple in several of the survival kits on the market, a magnesium bar with a built-in ferrocerium rod. Just make sure you have a knife. Scrape the magnesium and carefully build a small pile of shavings. Throw a spark by using the knife against the ferro rod. A brief flare up, but enough to get other materials going.[/*:m:1rcto2lt]
  
• Lint. Believe it or not, that lint in your pockets and in your clothes dryer makes a great firestarter. However, there's a lot of synthetics in our clothing today. Those synthetics may give off toxins when burned. Cotton lint works well.[/*:m:1rcto2lt]
  
• Cattail down makes great tinder. Just open the cattail head and fluff well.[/*:m:1rcto2lt]
  
• Dry hanging moss found in trees in mountain climates[/*:m:1rcto2lt]
  
• Dry grasses, leaves & pine needles[/*:m:1rcto2lt]
  
• A 9-volt battery and steel wool. The steel wool is touched to both the positive & negative terminals on the battery, and the current will actually catch the steel wool on fire.[/*:m:1rcto2lt]

These are just a few ideas.


Gather your wood and sort into piles. Now, we make fire.

Almost all methods of firebuilding use a similar method. Arrange your wood into a prescribed arrangement, build your tinder bundle, apply spark and gentle nurture the fire.

The arrangement of the wood is a key element. In the field, I like the teepee layout. It's just like it sounds. I push a stick into the ground, and use this to stack other finger-sized materials against. I make it about a 270-degree cone. This leaves a nice opening for me to place my tinder and throw the spark to it. The closed side of the cone shields the tinder from the wind as the fire catches. You can increase the wind-block by using larger logs to make a V-shaped block on the back of the teepee.

As an addendum, here's a few additional ideas:

• Check your first aid kit. Often you will find alcohol wipes which catch very easily.[/*:m:39d3jkc7]
  
• Hand sanitizer is alcohol-based & very flammable.[/*:m:39d3jkc7]
  
• Check your pockets for lint.[/*:m:39d3jkc7]
  
• Pull lint from inside your socks, or pull thread from them.[/*:m:39d3jkc7]
  
• I haven't experimented with it, but some models of Swiss Army Knife have a small magnifying glass. I'm not sure if it has adequate power or not.[/*:m:39d3jkc7]

Look around for gag gift birthday candles, the type you can't blow out. Once lit, they burn for quite a while.

Dry, dead wood catches easiest. The National Forest areas state you can only havest wood that is already downed. In other words, if the tree is dead but still standing it's off limits. The downside to wood that is on the ground is it might be wet. You can use your knife to cut down to the dry inner portion of the wood by whittling or batoning.

I did learn a new trick at the Oklahoma Wildlife Expo this past weekend. One of the guys takes two of the orange, screw-top waterproof match holders. He places them next to each other, with the screw tops on opposite ends, and offsets them such that the caps are above the base of the other. He then duct tapes them together. This fellow was not a fan of matches at all, but you can put matches in one and cotton balls in the other. He said that duct tape is also highly combustible. This creates a larger object, which is easier to hold -- when you are cold, gripping a small round object may be difficult. It also makes it easy to hold with your knees or in your armpit should one of your arms be injured.