Are you singing my title yet? ;)
Yesterday morning we played with fire. Yep, matches, lighters, flint and steel, magnesium/steel, battery and steel wool, whatever fire we could find or make.
Here’s my disclaimer again: I’m no expert here, but I love a “scientific” study and hands on testing, so we put some firestarting methods to the test. There is a lot of information around on making your own firestarters and what to have in your fire making supplies, and since I only want to carry what works I thought I’d do a little testing. Here’s a few of the items along for the experiment: Road flare (sorry, we didn’t light this one), 9 volt battery and steel wool, 3 different lighters, matches, flint and steel + char cloth, a fireplace log (didn’t light that either since I know they burn), hand sanitizer, firestarter made from rolled up cardboard dipped in wax, dryer lint, cotton balls, firestarter made with dryer lint + wax + egg carton, and a magnesium and steel firestarter. We found a safe place in the dirt to make our fires and got started.
Then I demonstrated the real old fashioned Flint and steel + char cloth and caught a pile of shredded hemp rope on fire. It burns quick, though, so you’d have to have the rest of your fire built and waiting for the ball of rope flame when it lit. I’ve seen other “nest” material used with flint & steel like shredded juniper bark. Anyone have any good experience here? I’m a bit of a novice.
A 9 volt Battery and steel wool burned, but it does not produce a flame, so would need a “nest” to get a flame plus the fire area prepped and ready as well. I’ll have to take flint/steel pictures another time. So by then we were getting hungry (especially the little people) so I put one of the egg carton lighters on top of the newspaper that was left from the mag/steel experiment and lit it on fire. Many thanks to Sharla, Rexanne, and Megan for keeping the fire going! (I really like to have a fire NOW, so tend to rush the application of larger pieces of wood.)
A quick note on the clicky lighters–they do not like to work at high altitudes. We’ve found a couple of lighters that light at high altitudes (one is a Coleman Adventurer I think–it is made specifically for high altitude lighting), but most are frustratingly unreliable. Just use matches if you’re going up above about 8,000 feet.
After all that, we cooked ourselves and the kids some hot dogs over our very own fire. Here it is–nastiness on a bun: 
What fire starting methods work for you?
Keep preparing! Angela
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I like strike anywhere matches in a marbles match safe or char cloth and steel!
scoutinlife–thanks for coming by! I definitely prefer matches, but I can see the steel and char cloth being very handy. Firestarting is a weak area with me, so I’m going to need to practice a bunch to get the flint/steel fire down! :)
That sure was fun! Just wish my babies would have been slightly more cooperative. I learned some new things and found out I could keep a fire going so that was good. HOpe you had a good weekend!
Nice blog, I just bookmarked it. Here are a couple similar tests:
http://oblio13.blogspot.com/2008/05/backcountry-firestarter-reviews.html
http://oblio13.blogspot.com/2009/01/gear-that-works-k-match-case-and-rei.html
Great Review. I LOVE all the testing and taste-testing that you do. You are providing much needed and valuable information to so folks! I'm sharing, sharing, sharing! :)
Take an 8″ length of old 1/4″ hemp rope.
Unravel it 2/3 rds of the way into 3 strands.
Unravel each strand 12 way, fluf out the fibers.
Dip the whole thing in melted wax.
It is now water proof.
If you dip the unraveled and the three strands two more times it willburn a lot longer.
The nest will light easily the staands wil then ketch on, whem it gets down to the unraveled part your flame will last untill the wax burns up (more wax and it lasts longer).
When you light one of these you will get a hot flame that will light damp wood.
using acouple of them one after the other will light a fire even on a rainy day.
You can carry these aroundforever and they will work every time.