Best Fire Starting Materials

[hiking_and_biking]

We keep emergency fire starting materials on us whenever we go hiking. We've never been in an actual emergency situation where we had to use them, so we've really just had them on us for peace of mind. (But what a wonderful thing that is!)

What's the best emergency fire starting materials/kit you've come across?

[CozInCowtown]

Cotton ball saturated with vasaline stored in a ZipLock baggie......and a Zippo.

[Malarkey]

To me it is any ferrocerium stick with a tinder-quik tabs or wet tinder cubes. This is dedicated stuff and works really well and under extreme conditions.

[oldsarge]

I have the cotton balls with vasaline, some drier lint, and some of those old army heat tabs to get the fire going, as for making a spark or fire, I have a bic, magnesium fire starter, and a Blast match. I also have a small magnifying glass and supplies to build a bow drill.

[Barney]

Nice kit oldsarge! Regarding fire, you can never have enough equipment, which is especially true for making fire in wet environments. Very hard, if not impossible.

[dinosaur]

At my cabin, if I want to start some damp kindling, I put a stack of it in the stove, cover it with cardboard, place a few paper towels in front of it saturated with lamp oil, open the draft, and light the paper towels.

The lamp oil burns readily and very hot because of the draft. It dries the kindling then sets it on fire. The cardboard surrounding the kindling makes sure the flame blows right through the damp kindling, Then the cardboard ignites and holds the heat in long enough to make certain the wood burns.

[ghostdog]

You have been given a lot of good ideas already but I can add some natural materials that the old ones found very valuable in inclement weather. They really work and many can find them in the locales they tramp around in.

Dried birch bark is a phenomenal fire starter. I keep a curl of it, bundling together some dry juniper shavings.

Fatwood from a pine stump is saturated with resin and if you take your knife and shave it into tiny curls you can get a fire going in damp weather. I keep a couple of small sticks in my tinder bundle or you can drill a hole in a piece as pictured below and attach it to your key chain.

I also keep a couple of pure cotton balls in that tinder bundle. You can fray a very small piece and place it in most any tinder. You can spark a flame first time out of the chute usually.

[hippieP]

ghost, that looks like a good trick to try out. I might need to try and find some in our town. I know we have usually used the kindling set instead. I guess we are still learning as we go when it comes to the outdoors life.

[Lamebeaver]

I've heard napalm works really well.....

[ghostdog]

Originally Posted by hippieP

ghost, that looks like a good trick to try out. I might need to try and find some in our town. I know we have usually used the kindling set instead. I guess we are still learning as we go when it comes to the outdoors life.

You'll have fun with it. The birch bark has a lot of oils so it burns like a little oil lamp for a few moments. Find some dry stuff or dry it good first.

Lamebeaver, I love the smell of napalm in the morning...