Ways to Start a Fire

How Tos

By: Wordsmith 15-Sep-2011

Introduction:

There once was a time when everyone knew how to survive off the land. It was a time when every man knew how to hunt, trap and fish to put food on his family's table. It was a time when every boy, man and woman knew how to handle a gun for self-preservation, but those days are long past. Only a hellish few people today could survive off the land today if they were forced to.
Surviving depends on many skills. To survive, one must know how to start a fire. Fire provides us with warmth; a means to cook our food and purify water; a means to ward off dangerous animals; and a means to signal others, to name just a few things fire provides us. There are many ways to start a fire, but I wonder how many you could list if asked too. I am only going to list five of them here. Learn them because they could save your life someday.

UCO Stormproof Matches

There should be plenty of UCO Stormproof matches in your bug out bag. A pack of fifty UCO Stormproof matches will cost you about $6 at most survival stores, but they beat any other waterproof, windproof match known to any survivalist. They burn hotter, and they burn 115 percent longer than any other survival match. Put a few boxes of them in your survival bag, but do not put them all in the same container. Use four or five watertight film canisters putting 40 or 50 matches in each canister. Do not put them in the handle of your survival knife even if Rambo did in "First Blood."

Carry Several Butane Lighters In Your Bug Out Bag

Yes, I did say several butane lighters. Two of them should be genuine survival lighters, such as the Windmill Delta Stormproof Lighters. These lighter run between $35 and $50 depending on the survivalist store you visit, but they light every time under the severest of conditions. Carry a can of butane refill gas too. Then throw in a few cheap, disposable butane lighters for use in more normal circumstances.

You Must Have a Firesteel and Scraper In Your Survival Kit

A FireSteel and Scraper are a tube of steel or magnesium that generates a 1300 degree spark when the scraper is rubbed down the tube. There are many excellent ones available today, but my favorite is the StrikeForce Fire Starter. The StrikeForce fire steel produces a spark three times as hot as any survival match. The StrikeForce, at $22 is a real bargain in my opinion.

Carry a 9-Volt Battery and some Steel Wool

Starting a fire with a 9-volt battery and steel wool is so easy that even a young child can do it the first time. All you have to do is touch the positive and negative terminals of the battery to the steel wool and steel wool will catch fire. Carry several batteries, because one battery, is only viable for a few fires.

Start a Fire Like the Natives, Rub Two Sticks Together

There are many ways to start a fire by rubbing two sticks together, and I am not going to go into how to do it here. I will do another List Five on five ways to do it another time. Just know that you need to know at least of the ways to start a fire by rubbing sticks together. It is one of the things that we had to be able to do before we were allowed to graduate from military survival school.

Final Thoughts

In a survival situation, being able to start a fire comes right after finding water, food and shelter. There are some situations where being able to start a fire even comes before finding food and shelter.