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Fire starters? 🔥 🔥

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Curious what everyone uses to start fires at camp. Anyone using drill methods or flint and steel?

My method isn't PC but it's effective for the backcountry. I stuff egg cartons with dryer lint, melt and pour parafin wax on it, and cut each into quarters. Light it with a Bic lighter or a match and 🔥🔥🔥

Have any better (more traditional) methods that are good for backcountry camping/hunting primarily?

 
I carry a bic in my kit for emergencies, I’ve never had to use it. In the woods or in camp my flint and steel serve me well. I’ve tried bow drill, just to see. I’ve never carried one or used it in the field.
I do have one of those tobacco tins with a glass in the top. It’s lit lots of my fires. It took me a bit to learn how to use a tinder tube well, but I use it regularly now.
I use a pyrites instead of a flint.
 
At camp I use a flint and steel, punkwood and shredded inner bark or similar natural material....I like to challenge myself by gathering material from my immediate surroundings.

For starting the wood stove at home I use a cotton makeup pad half dipped in wax.
 
I typically rely on flint and steel and a small square of charred cloth. For tinder I can usually pick up enough dried grass, leaves, and very small twigs to form my birds' nest. In case that doesn't work, there's always a hank of jute twine in my fire starting kit bag. I also carry a burning lens which I mostly use for lighting my pipe.
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A candle stub is a great thing to carry...In day or night light it upon first flame as an insurance policy. More than once I've had wet wood go out on me....A candle saves a lot of energy and resources to get it going again.

I wrote about this years ago, .....one summer I started a fire every day with a flint and steel, rain or shine....Very educational and challenging.
 
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If you are looking for something more traditional that works as well as a waxed egg carton, I suggest fatwood, or punkwood.

Fat wood burns almost like wax does.

Punk wood is slower but generates a lot of heat, once ignited by spark it is almost impossible to extinguish punkwood by blowing on it.
 
After a night of having a big campfire, it is not uncommon to find charcoaled remains. I save these remains and use them to start additional fires.

I have even been able to spark light them alone and make a charcoal fire, then using it to make a regular fire.

A handy thing to have when trying to start fires is a blow tube. It works great and beats standing on your head with your face in the fire.
 
Thanks!! Will check out some of these options. :bow:

But will probably still bring my Bic and waxed egg cartons in my "survival bag."
 
Anytime the sun is out I use a burning lens and either charcloth or charwood with cedar bark.

I use the lock on my flintlock gun quite a bit, simply put a piece of charcloth in the pan close the frizzen and fire. Works like magic, and it is flint and steel, after all.

Regular flint and steel, sometimes.

I learned the fire drill years ago, haven't used that in a long time.

I don't do modern fire starting gear on my treks, don't even take them along, but then, my treks aren't survival situations.

Spence
 
George said:
Anytime the sun is out I use a burning lens and either charcloth or charwood with cedar bark.

I use the lock on my flintlock gun quite a bit, simply put a piece of charcloth in the pan close the frizzen and fire. Works like magic, and it is flint and steel, after all.

Regular flint and steel, sometimes.

I learned the fire drill years ago, haven't used that in a long time.

I don't do modern fire starting gear on my treks, don't even take them along, but then, my treks aren't survival situations.

Spence
The burning lense is a cool idea. Do you need a specific type of glass for this?

Our trips aren't planned as a survival trips either, but when your base camp is 4.5 miles from any road that possibility always exists. We had a guy lost on his own for over 24 hours last year and had to activate SAR. He eventually made his way to a trailhead on the other side of the mountain about 8 miles from our camp. IMO, tradition is awesome but it goes out the window in a situation like that. So, I find comfort in being always prepared for the worst.
 
I’ve carried a bic for years, and change it out of my kit every spring. I’ve not ever had to use it. Last time I needed a first aid kit, I didn’t have one. Since I started carrying a first aid kit I’ve never needed one.
A couple of years ago I took a minor fall and came down on my bag with my flask of rum. It was a backwoods tin and copper flask and I busted it apart.
Just that easy it could have been a leg bone or hip. Hc is great but not worth dying for.
 
dsayer said:
Curious what everyone uses to start fires at camp. Anyone using drill methods or flint and steel?
Flint & steel, Bow-drill and burning glass are primitive methods I've used or taught. Charred punk wood is used to catch a spark and shredded Cottonwood inner bark and/or Cedar bark is used as the nest. I also keep candle stubs & pitch-wood in my fire kit to be used as needed.

In modern circumstances, I've also used matches, lighters, Ferrocerium rods, battery & steel wool and Potassium permanganate & glycerol in addition to the methods above. I carry firestarters made from planer shavings and paraffin with a wick in egg carton - will burn a good 20-30 minutes and create a pool of flaming melted paraffin about 8-10" across that will light even the wettest tinder & kindling.
 
dsayer said:
The burning lense is a cool idea. Do you need a specific type of glass for this?
Any fairly strong magnifying lens will work. I use a brass box by Ted Cash with a burning lens in the lid. That one is a 6X magnifier and works very well.

Spence
 
Black Hand said:
You can also buy an inexpensive magnifying glass
A "Burning lens" and a "Magnifying Glass" are two different things.
Basically a "Magnifying Glass" is of course for assisting our vision, and will lend a magnification across the entire lens.
A "Burning glass" has a much smaller focal point and will indeed "magnify" for our vision but only in the very center of the lens.
The "Burning Glass" is designed to use a larger area of light to be brought to the focal point.
A Burning glass and Magnifying glass are different.
 
Dude, you can't compare "back country", Rendezvous and "traditional" methods in the same thread.

At a Rendezvous where I drive my truck to carry all my gear and set-up for the weekend, ,
,I use charcoal starter and a bic lighter for my fire,, because I need to cook on it, for my meals, so I can get to the next event on the schedule. Which may be "fire starting",, that I can usually do in under 7 seconds with my leather bag Flint-n-steel kit.

While I hunt in the "back-country" I always carry a small tin with flint-n-steel/char and tow, because the modern items can fail or get wet.

If your going to do this traditional stuff, you should at least get the flint-n-steel trick down, learn to make char-cloth, and or char other natural items for the kit. Most 8-10yr olds at `vous can do this.
Learning the hand drill or bow drill is next and usually related to what you can gather in your area.
I can hand drill with a Mullein stalk and poplar hearth.
You can use Milkweed, Mullein pith, Birch rot, or random pulp for char or as found to catch a spark.
But ya need to know how to make a spark or ember.
 
Black Hand said:
Yes, I know.
All that said, a magnifying glass DOES work...
No kidding? You played with one as a kid too?
Ok, just don't tell or allow folks to think they're the same.
A Burning glass is really nice to have.
 
IMO, tradition is awesome but it goes out the window in a situation like that. So, I find comfort in being always prepared for the worst.

Actually!....When things go south, That's when you really need your primitive skills to fall back on.
I pride myself in knowing that I can make fire virtually anywhere and without any aids or devices.
Knowledge is the best survival tool.
 
All this talk about burning lenses got me to thinking.....I bet kids today don't even know how to pass time by frying ants on a sidewalk with a magnifying glass....
I did that a lot when I was a kid.... :haha:
 
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