I�ve been experimenting with making my own fire starting aids lately while learning to use a fire steel better.

My latest concoction: 2 parts Vaseline to one part paraffin used as flammable minimal binding material for a blend of pitch wood sawdust and fine shavings plus drier lint with two wicks and a waterproofed cotton ball stuck on top. The whole batch goes into a half sized paper cupcake liner, filled about � full. A lighter or match will light it anywhere on its surface and the flint & steel will light the lubed cotton ball if some of the fibers are teased and combed out into fine separate threads rather than clumped tight in the waxy coating.

Yesterday in gusty slushy rain on my deck it lit on the third try with firesteel and burned for almost five minutes. My son has tried it after submersing it in water for five minutes and it lit immediately with a lighter.

Natural cotton balls light instantly with sparks from a fire steel, but they need some kind of waterproofing to be worth carrying in our wet country. With a light coating of Vaseline rubbed into them, they are still fluffy enough to light fairly easily and are remarkably water resistant. When fully saturated, they are hard to light with the fire steel without considerable picking and combing out fine fibers for the spark to ignite. With cold hands in gusty rain, it could be tough to do the fine motor skill work to get flammable fibers separated out enough for the spark to ignite.

Another excellent start medium for the fire steel is fuzz from pitchwood. With a knife blade or the sharp edge of a freshly broken rock, scrape and rub back and forth for a half inch or more on a flat surface of a small slab of pitch wood. Fuzz will build up on both sides of the scrape area. It only takes a pinch of such fuzz to ignite with a fire steel spark, and if the pitchwood slab is thin and small, it will continue a strong flame.

Fatwood

You can light it with a UCO match or a lighter, or scrape some off with a knife and light that with a ferro rod, then light the remainder of the fatwood stick.

Vaseline cotton balls work okay, but for using a magnesium block/sparker, I've had much more succes using cotton balls soaked in an alcohol based hand sanitizer.

I like a combination of vaseline and mineral oil. The MO is not as sticky, and soaks the cotton better, IMO. Either is a good fuel to burn the cotton ball.

do any of you melt the vaseline and then soak your cotton balls?

I've done it both ways. It is quick and total with melted Vaseline.

With unmelted, I found it easiest and least messy to dab a gob of vaseline onto a few cotton balls, put them in a ziploc bag and then knead them till all of the vaseline is absorbed and evenly distributed through the cotton. A bit of trial and error will get the right amount.

I do it the same way with the ziplock bag. Scoop out a gob of vaseline with my knife and wipe it in the ziplock. I use a prescription pill container to store a lot of cotton balls (pack it in). I pluck them out with the knife and put them in the ziplock bag with the vaseline and knead them together.
Real easy! No mess.

Ya vaseline and cotten balls works

I use the vaseline lip balm in a small squeeze tube and the cotton ball with a fire steel system. I also have chapstick in the kit. Both materials are self contained and are still usable for their intended use.

i do this but i just save lint from the dryer and put in ziploc sandwich bags.

Yakataga - are you combining the cotton balls and vaseline/chapstick before you head outside? Or just taking both separate and combining right before lighting a fire?

I like the idea of not having a goopy ziplock in my pocket, but wondering if the cotton balls get wet BEFORE adding the vaseline, will it still work as well?

Me too on the goopy ziploc in pocket or pack. Wear and tear in a pocket etc. tends to poke holes in ziplocs and I HATE grease in a pack. I will try to photograph the small sealed tubs I found last week, a little bigger than the old standby of 35mm film canisters. Also, I wrapped a few of these items in stick-to-self Saran type wrap and that works pretty well, though I like the double protection of the plastic container whether it is prescription bottle or whatever: keeps the fire starter dry plus avoids mess in pack or pocket.

I keep my vaseline/cotton balls in a chewing tobacco can.

I just keep a 1 Oz bottle of Fire Paste in my kit. An ounce, if I stretch it, can last me almost 2 weeks.

Or, if you fall into a creek, you can use the whole ounce on the closest standing dead tree and have a Tiki Torch.

I keep everything separate. The cotton balls are in their own water resistant pill bottle. The vaseline lip balm is pretty handy for squirting out just the right amount of grease and then mixing it in. You don't need very much to get a good blaze.

We had to try three different fire starting systems in Learn to Return Aviation Safety class last winter. About a 1/4 inch of capstick mixed into the cotton ball and then teased the ball apart to gets lots of surface area created a really good kinder only fire. The vaseline was in a little jar and made a mess. However, still only need a small amount of the grease to get a good fire.

If I was going to attempt a fire in super wet conditions, I would build a shelter to keep the base fire materials and area as dry as possible for the initial lighting. Then keep the tender materials secure until I was finally ready to strike a spark.

Very good idea. We sure try to get it protected from wind and rain, and keep the next size up of kindling under a plastic bag or in a pack or something.

The second stage of fire building past initial starting flame is MUCH HARDER for us on the coast than getting initial flame. It is really hard to get a self sustaining fire going. In the past month I've built fires three times in wet brushy timber where it had been raining and snowing and melting for weeks. Each was near a vehicle and an axe made a huge difference in accessing enough quantity of wood in small enough diameter to dry out and burn.

The finest hairlike ends of dead twigs on spruce and fir trees covered by a canopy of branches above them are the most likely to be avaiable source of secondary kindling to find in our woods. They will likely be damp, maybe even soaked, but they are fine enough to dry and burn if you can keep a flame under them for a couple of minutes. It takes a LOT of them, and they don't work well unless every side twig is pulled off and they lie straight together like coarse hair. Any side twigs and it pushes the bundle apart too much to ever get burning. Gathering a softball diameter bundle sometimes takes quite awhile. It is worth it. Most novice fire builders in this area light the tinder too soon and don't have enough fine material to feed it.

Dead limbs broken from a tree trunk are our main source of backpack firewood in wet country, never picked up from the ground. Anything touching the ground is wet enough to squeeze liquid water from it (if you are as strong as Chuck Norris ). I don't backpack an axe or large saw, but cutting short, knot free sections of such limbs gives a source of inner wood that can be split into small diameter kindling with a knife. Standing dead sapling poles are another good source. A knife will peel off shavings from the inner wood of the split face. It will likely be damp, but again, if sliced into thin shavings, it will dry if kept over a flame for awhile. It takes a LOT of such stuff to ever get a sustaining fire going, and it requires constant attention, propping the next pieces of firewood to dry as close to the flame as possible, etc.

The most difficult fire starting conditions I've tried happened on a four day November backpack hunt near alpine. It took me hours to get a sustaining fire started. I was keeping camp, not hunting. I used a small folding saw to cut five inch long pieces of straight grained grey dead root horn off of a fallen fir tree, then used my knife to split and cut shavings from those. Prep of the secondary material after intitial flame material took me nearly two hours. It had been wet for a month or more.

i like a pill bottle with Vaseline embedded cotton balls, backed up by a tin of paraffin saturated cotton balls.

i lay a scattered bed of small twigs and then strike fire to the Vaseline cotton ball on top of them. feed some matchwood twigs on top of that, and if they are damp i add a paraffin cotton ball to dry them out.

once i have a good hot matchwood fire going, which can take a lot of small stuff, i begin to selectively add pencil diameter kindling, and slowly work up to finger wood...

do your prep thoroughly and gather 10-20 times the matchwood that you think you'll need. you'll need it, particularly if all your deadfall is damp or the least bit punky.

if it's truly wet out, some small strips of innertube can give you the heat to dry some stuff out.

if you're making paraffin/cotton balls, wrap them individually in waxed paper and store them in a tin or pouch... they are a bear to get apart if they get mushed together and then get cold.

use caution when working around a stove with paraffin... it'll burn you clean out... i use a double boil setup to melt the stuff...

Good info. Since we are normally working with damp twigs etc. I do one step differently. I lay my base out with a "stairstep" about an inch to 1 1/2 inch high, lean my bundle of fine twigs or splinters etc. on that and put the initial fire ball of cotton, Trioxane etc. in the gap under the fine twigs. The flame goes up through the kindling, drying and igniting it. Pitch wood sticks will feed under one at a time and keep the flame going until the stuff above gets going. A normal fire start takes me one cotton ball and one slat of pitchwood or fatwood. Recent fires built in rain after weeks of rain have required me to feed in three slats of pitchwood one at a time as the prior one burned out, before the bundle of fine twigs got going.

Ditto on double boiler for melting paraffin. Very dangerous stuff.

The best manmade tinder/starter I have seen are heavy paper towels dipped in parriffin and beeswax. One can even precoat the towels with petrol jelly before hand if desired, but it's not neccessary. The dried parriffin and wax make for easier and neater carry vs. cotton balls and vaseline, and you can unfold them like an little book and use as needed.

wow I guess I am fortunate not to have to deal with those kinds of circumstances when it comes to building a fire. Usually I can grab a fistful of birchbark and be good to go. But good and practical info.

trioxane

At home, I start my wet burn piles with a large can of WD40. I always have some in the jeep.

I have been meaning to test if/how the small bottle of CLP or Gun Butter that I sometimes bring with me when out shooting/camping can work as fire starter in emergencies. I carry them anyway when camping with firearms...

I'm reminded of an "old indian trick" taught to my buddy by a native amercian.
He would gather up whatever wood he could find. It matter not if it was dry or wet, nor what size it was.
After piling same, he'd open a can of 10 wt. chain saw oil and pour it over the wood. One match later and he always had a large, warm fire. But you did need to be up wind of the smoke.
All kidding aside. Having the ability to make a decent fire under tough conditions might save your life one day. That dead branches under the canopy technique saved my bacom many years ago. E

Good stuff, when it works. I've had foil packages of it that had small cracks and the stuff wouldn't light. I'd have a second source of firestarter.

That is experience talking! I think it is true to a certain extent everywhere and is the most often overlooked aspect of firebuilding. I don't know what world the "tinder to kindling" people are living in, but I know I've never been there. It always takes me a much more gradual progression of fuels with ample attention paid to building a good base of one size of fuel before trying to ladder up to the next one. All the different tinders I have tried work pretty well but none of them have been magic bullets that allowed me to ignore the real work of getting a fire to the self sustaining point.


For initial fire lighting, I carry 2" squares of bicycle inner tube. A single square will usually burn for about 3 minutes. That lets me carry a whole bunch of "starts" in a really compact and non-messy package. For backup, I carry trioxane. It's been a while since I've seen trioxane that wouldn't light as TAK mentions but I have seen it.

E:

I think that's called "Squaw Wood". The tiniest twigs make good tinder and the rest makes good kindling.

KC

Used to be called...

Squaw fish are now called pike minnows in BC, so the previously named wood will likely now be called something like Fairy Cellulose or maybe Pike Sticks.

Whatever its called, it is good stuff and usually available in western forests in some form or other.

I usually keep it in a zip lock or my first aid kit but I also take a film canister full of vaseline and another full of cotton balls. Between the 2 of them I've never had a problem getting the wetest of Alaska's wood burning.

Evan makes a good point. All to often I see people pay lots of attention to tinder only to watch their fire smolder and die. Some call survey peg size wood "kindling" and to me that is more of a sustainable burn size fuel once the fire is really going.

I use what I refer to as micro kindling. Fatwood if available or at least dry wood that is toothpick to match stick size in diameter. Then I progress up to pencil size, then to thumb size and so on. It takes one heck of a fire to throw big wood on and have it sustain.

The necessity of having an ax or splitting knife is that the dry wood may only be available well inside a standing dead tree or branch. Splitting tools also allows you to have small wood to feed the fire with. Especially in a wood stove, I like to add small wood with large wood for a more complete burn.

There is no magic bullet, but lots of practice in the worst conditions you can find will prepare you for when the fire might be a matter of surviving.

Carry a good fire kit and like Dan said, gather pitch balls, pitch wood etc as you travel so that when you get to camp at least some of the essential burning material is at hand.

That... That right there...

That's truth that only comes from experience.

It all boils down to one simple thing. Unless you have actually gone out into the area that you plan on playing in, and built some fires, everything you think you know is just a theory.

I take 3 ways to get it burning and an axe. I've never built a fire in a rainforest. But if you ever wanted to make a blaze in NW Montana, I might have some real working knowledge about that.

Old man beard works well as a tinder it is very available in the Northwest and is part of my backup to what I carry.
Birch bark as mentioned is also great , Birch has a fuel in the bark so to speak when burning it puts off a black smoke.
In my truck and ATV I always carry hand sanitizer.
Processing wood is always a factor so I always have a good solid fixed blade knife. For breaking down bigger wood if a saw is not with you you can break it down using the tree wrench method.

I am no kind of expert, but the night i made my above post i went out and made a fire using the advice I gave. Temp was mid 30s with a hard blowing wind carrying a light mist...
It had previously rained steadily for 24 hours, ending about 24 hours before my effort.

my 16 year old and I went back out last night and did it again... 14 degrees, light variable breeze, and all wood coated with frost or ice, from the freezing rain/snow storm of the day before.

on my first fire, a few nights ago, i got fire with the first strike of my swedish fire steel into the vaseline cotton ball...

last nights fire, we got sparks from the steel, but they weren't hot/forceful enough, with the attached scraper, to actually strike fire... I picked up my estwing sportsmans axe and scraped with it... one smooth scrape and a huge shower of hot sparks produced flame... it took a minute or so for the cotton ball to become fully fired, so iwaited and then added a parrafin/cotton ball and one strip of inner tube.

as the added cotton ball and rubber began to burn i added 3 matchwood twigs, all covered in frost. the damp started crackling immediately. i added matchwood 3 pieces at a time til i had some small hot coal built up and some fresh matchwood drying/burning on top.

then i added my first piece of frosty pencil wood. the matchwood burned down around it and i had to add more matchwood still to keep going.
at this point i added yet one more paraffin/cotton ball, and yet another pencil wood twig.

the jump to pencil wood is a major effort, if you've got damp wood. it was easier the first night because of the brisk wind. i was sheltering the fire with my body and only had to shift position to allow forceful ventilation.
the second night, the winds were very light and almost calm... i almost hyperventilated blowing on those matchwood coals to coax flame enough to ignite the pencil wood.

last night i probably used a half hat full of matchwood, and once i got the pencil wood going i had enough heat to cook a one pot meal. i left it there...

the first night i proceeded til i had some 1" or better sticks blazing, and could have easily built that fire bigger...

building a fire in less than good conditions is work... you gotta make your own conditions...

I believe it's easier to make a fire in the dark as i can better see what's going on, in the flames...
but making a spot for, and acquiring materials for your fire is best done in daylight...

Good post. Any wood that is frosty, damp or wet will need a good base fire to start combustion on bigger wood. Again if you have the ability to have a few pieces of fatwood anywhere from match size to pencil size it will produce a pretty intense inferno that will make the sustaining fire easier to maintain.

I have had a couple instances where I have shot an elk at below zero temperatures and the first thing I have done is get a hellacious fire going. One time I dragged a sizable pitchwood stump into the fire and then I had some intense heat that lasted for a long time.

i hit the post button before i was done... had to edit some more in...

and if you are lying on the ground making a fire or sheltering your fire from wind, anchor anything you're lying on to keep it out of the fire...

most areas around here are mixed deciduous and second growth scrub...

I'd love to run across some fatwood, but don't see it comong from cottonwood or maple which comprise the bulk of deadfall hereaboot...

This works well for me in harsh conditions.

And that is a voice of experience!

In parallel story, a friend of mine shot a whitetail at sundown in temps about-25 and dropping fast. A big fir deadfall lay where he took the shot and the intstant the deer hit the ground I started breaking limbs and building a fire. Easy in the cold dry conditions. I called to him to drag the deer to the fire and we gutted it there with a warming fire started BEFORE getting the first drop of liquid on hands.

I never got the point of the steel/spark thing, whats wrong with a bic lighter? And a spare if you're a worrier.

Strips of car inner tube rubber works well, put a bunch of cut up strips in your bag, burn well even if wet. If its raining or snowing start the fire inside a plastic supermarket bag, you know the ones you use to put your other stuff in your pack inside of. Then just let the bag burn up as well.
Like the posters said earlier, keeping a fire going properly is the main problem in wet difficult conditions, there is usually a lot of whittling going before a fire gets big enough to dry other sticks/wood.

I've had lots of lighters fail, even Bics. Never had a fire steel fail. Seldom need more than one strike to have fire. A fire steel never runs out of fuel and works when wet too.

Bics also do not like cold weather. Plus fire steel's are just freakin cool.

This is a fire starting technique everyone should learn. Duct Tape is a fire starting material. Always keep a roll handy in your vehicle or hunting pack, it fixes about everything �but few learn it is a fire starter. It�s waterproof, too. Tear off a foot or more, and wad it into a ball, place it on an appropriate surface (a flat rock is good) and light it. The glue is flammable, and a round wad melts into a puddle of sticky gel-fuel that burns until the puddle is exhausted ash. A twig tipi of wet wood will burn when you set a rolled wad inside and light the tape; it will dry the wood as it ignites it. Remember it creates a puddle of gel-fuel that can be moved for best position (also think portable rock candle used for light, too). Duct Tape could save your life if stranded in the winter or in a situation where a fire is desperately needed �don�t forget the Duct Tape!

the original bic lighter with adjustable flame was a fair fire making tool... Not great for true cold weather, or high elevations, but for most purposes, it was OK...

the current bic lighter has too small of a flame, is hard to keep burning for any time without burning fingers, and is durable enough for most purposes, but still subject to breakage...

as lighters go, i prefer the zippo, which will burn long without getting too hot to use... it provides plenty of flame to ignite about anything, and is exceedingly durable... I know guys who have used the same lighter for over 40 years.
the zippo does require some light maintenance, and is not completely weatherproof... i have yet to see a completely weatherproof mechanical lighter.

the F.C. firesteels are impervious to any condition that i can imagine... and so easily used that i tend to use them even when a mechanical lighter would suffice...

Part of my approach to backcountry living is to use more primitive means of living whenever possible.

Instead of taking an LED light for the tent that only serves one purpose, I take a USGI surplus Pink Lady candle. Around camp, using that, with kindling that you usually get from splitting Lodgepole, it can make hot fire quick fast and in a hurry like. I've usually got some Strike Anywheres along in the Fireworks too.

Some pics of fatwood or resin saturated fir.

First, a chunk of heavy pitch-saturated fir I cut from a snag that was mostly red rot. Door frame gives a size reference. It is so heavy I do not think it would float, though I did not test that. It is totally dry and non-sticky. Any pitch balls etc. on the outside will crumble.





Close up of the inside of the same pice of wood. The outside is weathered.



After cutting the large piece into 4 or 5 inch long chunks, I split it with a big knife into slabs as thin as possible. The straight old growth grain splits easily going one way or the other so try it each way. I think it is from the top end of the tree toward the roots that splits straight without splittling out to the side, but never can remember.



I wrap a small handful of these slats in a paper towel, put that bundle in a zip loc and carry it always with my small fire making kit. The paper towel protects the zip loc from being shredded by the sharp ends of the wood, and it also burns. A large bundle of this stuff is under the seat of my 4x4 and another in my cook kit tub, etc.



Scraping the resin wood with a knife blade or sharp rock produces a fuzz. The fuzz scraped up in this photo ignited on my fourth spark stroke, and I am not very good with the fire steel yet. In previous tries, it ignited on first or second stroke. The slat is less than 1/16 inch thick and burning fuzz starts the slat on fire, which then works like a magnum match.

WetFire fire starting tinder.

Dry solid cube....non-toxic.....5 year shelf life.....burns at 1300 F......cools instantly....easy to ignite.
Cabelas.....Bass Pro.....Amazon.....many other stores.

http://www.reveresupply.com/ust_website/videos/wetfire.wmv

I've had a block of fire starting cubes from Coghlans or someone like that under the seat of my 4x4 for several years and haven't used it much. Saving it for a real emergency! My mix of fatwood sawdust and shavings in a flammable binding was a concious copy.

For the time and money invested, buying fire paste or such fire starter blocks is a better way to go. I've enjoyed working with this pitch saturated wood and have given it as gifts to selected friends and family who hike and hunt. I over-focus at times, but this is a relatively harmless fad!

Below is a block cut from the long piece shown leaning against the door in one of the pics posted earlier on this thread. It shows the first few slices or splits of wood from the block. I used a knife with a nine inch long blade and press down on both the handle and the back of the blade near the end to get such tidy thin splits. Light pressure and rock the blade a bit at the start.



Some fir fatwood slats stored in plastic jars. If I didn't give it away I'd have a lifetime supply on hand. My two sons heat with wood, on the wet coast, and I gave them each a large shoe box of this stuff. Their kids love it for starting fires.

Okanagan;
I trust and pray that this finds you and yours doing well this fine and very still morning my friend.

As a bit of proof that even aging canines can be taught some new tricks, I changed the way I typically split my fatwood to the thinner and wider wafers such as you've shown.

I split a couple shoe boxes full yesterday after I'd moved firewood to the house and rebedded the bottom metal on the 98 that went crazy on me this season. As an added bonus the garage smells much less like an abattoir now.

Oh, I even finally found a use for a knife that was given to me by a consultant that a few owners back had in to work. He gave me this knife from Lee Valley;

http://www.leevalley.com/en/shopping/AddViews.aspx?p=54891

I must confess that I'd found little use for it until I read your post and thought the hacking knife was built just for splitting fatwood!

Oh, I'm going to try your fuzzing the stick and using the ferro rod right on it too - as well as Dan's very cool tip for modifying a striker.

Thanks to you sir and to all who have contributed to an educational thread. As always you and your family are in my daily prayers.

Dwayne

Who'da thunk it? I carry duct tape wrapped around my hiking poles and canoe thwarts. This is good to know, thanks.

Yep, I gotta try that.

Dwayne, you have the ideal knife for splitting fatwood! As for other uses ...

I used to carry a thumb diameter stick of fatwood and would shave off slivers to start a fire, then accidentally discovered on a straight grained piece how well it splits. The thin flat pieces ignite easily.

There has to be another use for wood so pretty.

P.S. Was browsing some old threads and realized that DanAdair posted about scraping up fatwood fuzz to ignite by spark, and that's probably where I got the idea.

Might be he did. But this is an excellent topic for discussion. Glad you brought it up. E

I've played with fatwood very little. For 3-4 day trips, I like Coughlans fire paste. I feel it's the highest BTUs for the weight as I'm not allowed to play with Napalm anymore. A guy could spend an afternoon sourcing some I suppose, but that's an afternoon I could spend fishing or hunting.

But primitive living skills are where my studies have been lately, because in 17 more years when I semi retire, I plan on spending 7 months in a wilderness being a total land hippy.

Just took a second gander at that WetFire stuff and it looks superb, especially since it does not evaporate like Trioxane when exposed to air. Thanks for the link!

The Wet Fire Tinder is always my emergency go to fire tinder.

Every, pack, coat, vehicle, etc., I own, has a small waterproof storage tube in it with cotton balls soaked in Vaseline and a magnesium rod with steel(piece of hack saw blade). The containers are the type ya find at marina/boat stores that have the screw off lid with rubber gasket, that float. Works for me!
G

I almost always carry wet fire. One tablet can start several fires

Or two or three can get pretty wet wood going.

Ed, wish I could take your wilderness course, though it is not likely for me to manage that. As the title of this thread indicates, I've tinkered and learned while doing but like all self taught people, we never know what we don't know!

Of more value than my pics of cutting up fatwood is your field instruction on how to find such wood in the wilderness and how to use it there.

We got a fresh tracking snow within the past two hours and if it doesn't melt, I might be tempted to get off of my couch and venture out tomorrow. If so, hope to survive enough to return alive!

Best of the New Year to all on the Backpack Forum!

Good Thread..

I have only shot one elk but that's exactly what we did..The fire was nice to warm up to every 10 minutes or so.. The pack out was only about a mile to the truck so we would stock the fire real good so it was still burning when we returned for more meat..

I have been using some fire starters I bought at Cabelas about 10 years ago, they work great for backpacking and emergency use but I am about out.. I will be using the cotton ball/vaseline method as well as a fire steel once they are out..

I used to use 35mm film canisters. For you youn'uns, those were small plastic cans with good lids used to hold these round pre-Civil War thingies called camera film. When 35mm film became extinct, I switched to large pill bottles. There's no way a lid will ever come off of one of those...whether you want it off or not. If your emergency involves cold hands, they'll be a lot colder before you get the lid off to start a fire. It might be easier to carry a couple tracer rounds for your rifle to shoot the lid off and start the fire at the same time.

For me, the easiest and most abundant to find tinder that works VERY EASILY with a firesteel is plain ol' punk wood. When it is wet out, you can usually still get at dry stuff in the middle of a rotted out log wity just your bare hands.

If I'm badly in need of a fire, the last thing I want to do is go digging through rotten trees looking for punk. I want something to light NOW. Playing mountain man isn't nearly as much fun when you're desperately in need of a fire. Besides, if you're out hunting coyotes in 5 million acres of sagebrush, finding a dead tree can take weeks.

Yeah, I'm in the NE so my reply was prolly too generalized.

I was also more replying to the OP's original thing about "learning to use a fire steel better". One prolly would not be looking for fatwood in an emergency by you either though that has been discussed in this thread, eh?

Except for what we carry, we can't count on finding any of the specific fire aids mentioned out in the bush. That's why it is good to know about many such materials (if we travel outside our local area) and how to find and use them in the areas where they occur.

The punk wood for example is one I will remember and try next time I'm in dry timber away from the coast, but it is all damp most of the time in coastal areas, even in the center of a log. (When its wet out = September through June .) I wouldn't bother looking for fatwood on the NW coast either, but would east of the first mountain range. In the interior it is common and many times I have found it handy in the bush and used what I could break off with my hands to start campfires. Ditto with birch bark- handy in some areas and not worth looking for in others.

Rockchuck, have cooked meals on sage wood fires. It is far from the best but was all we had.

Ice fog in endless sage country has to be one of the bad scenarios for survival if things went bad. I lean with those who think that we need to carry/wear items to survive for at least an overnight with no fire.

That right there is why I now keep my GPS on me in Eastern Montana. Toolie fog on the coast ain't got [bleep].

At least we don't see ice fog in NW Montana until winter.

Now November Whiteouts at 7000' are fun as hell too.

Fritos corn chips are a great fire starter,the dippers even better.I have started my pellet stove with fritos and pellets are hard to ignite.

Jayco

Burning too much fatwood in wood stove can clog the stove pipe badly. Dark smoke from fatwood actually forms furry stuff inside stove pipe and pipe must be cleaned running spruce boughs through the sections. Sparkscreens are also easily clogged when using a lot of fatwood. Best to use it only as firestarter in woodstoves.
Has anybody else noticed that?

I also find WetFire good, but better check them before heading out. Also they dry out and hardly burn after that...

By the time I decide I need a fire, the Fritos are long gone. I'm addicted to those things.

Here in the east, something I've found that works well is Poplar bark. The woods are full of poplar limbs. After they lay awhile, the bark starts to seperate. It is stringy and fibrous. Actually, it is the fibrous cambium layer underneath.



If you take your knife blade and scrape these old limbs, the outer bark chips away and that stringy inner layer fuzzes up into some fine firestarter. As long as it's dry, one or two strikes from a firesteel is all it takes. I carry a baggie of this in my firekit all the time. It weighs practically nothing. Finding any dry in the rain is a challenge however.



By the way, someone on another thread (or maybe it was this one) posted this link to a GobSpark Armegeddon Firesteel. I ordered a couple and they work great. They throw a shower of HOT sparks. Be advised if you order one the scraper that it clips into is a seperate order item.
http://firesteel.com/gobspark-armageddon-firesteel/

Good info and excellent photos! I learned something.

Will add that the inside of dead dry red cedar bark in the far west will scrape up into fine fibrous fuzz as well. I have a nephew who is excellent at primitive skills and he scrapes the cedar bark with the edge of a broken stone. The he uses that ball of fuzz to catch and ignite from the small hot "coal" produced by friction from a hand drill.

His demo to me was impressive, but done on a dry day in August. Our problem is to find dry cedar bark most of the rest of the year! But good info to know and worth checking just in case it is dry under a big deadfall, etc.

I am surprised I didn't see pocket lint listed as a fire starting method. Most of the time you can find some lint somewhere. In your pockets, pack, bellybutton, etc.

My typical method, however, is the Vaseline and cotton ball method mixed as others have suggested, putting cotton balls and Vaseline in a plastic bag to coat the cotton balls before transferring them to a prescription bottle.

That being said, I usually have multiple methods on me at all times when away from home. Why complicate things when a lighter is a fine tool. Then I can go from that to the firesteel and cotton ball and in the worst cases I can start scrounging for pocket lint and birch bark. I also find that if I can find enough dry wood I can typically make shavings to get a fire started as well.

I like a combination of vaseline and mineral oil

Seriously, are you REALLY surprised that pocket lint and bellybutton lint are not listed as a fire starting method? Just curious.

I was being sarcastic with the belly button comment, but not with the pocket lint. I have use lint as a fire starter in the past when in a pinch.

Another item I find starts a great fire is dryer lint. I will sometimes shove a handful of dryer lint in my pack to start a fire. It is excellent tender.

Dryer lint is a horse of a different color. I've seen it used before. works as well as the cotton balls supposedly.

in my packs, I carry a zip lock bag with dryer lint, fat wood sticks, matches, fire steel and lighter.
I have never been in a position where I could not start a fire.

I use a combination of some of the posts on this thread. I take a toilet paper cardboard roll and stuff it with dryer lint and then wrap the roll in duct tape. Place the kindeling on top of the roll and light the end.

I know this sounds silly, but I just nicked an UNUSED med from the medicine cabinet and placed it in my kit which is housed within an old 1911 galvanised cleaning kit tin.
The med is compressed and easily teased apart with the piece of saw blade I keep with the fire lighting rod, the saw also provides dust and chips to add bulk for starting a fire.

Since they are a one size fits all...I am pretty sure one will last a lifetime of lighting fires.

Well, if anyone like me has been thinking "why the hell do I need a V2.0 Firesteel when I got like 5 of the V1.0's??"

I'm here to tell ya, that's now the Firesteel in my fireworks. I don't fully comprehend the physics of better ergonomics making a [bleep] more spark, but you just lean on them harder. I've also added about a half ounce stick of fatwood that I also picked up at REI in Bozeman.

A buddy of mine joked "Only 50 bucks at REI, isn't that the cover charge at the door???"

Yup The V2.0 is the best I have used.

http://www.amazon.com/Light-Fire-Sw...09&sr=8-4&keywords=light+my+fire

17 bucks for 12,000 strikes, which works out to .00142 cents per strike for a firesteel that works when wet and throws sparks at 5500F.

Get the orange one, easier to find when you set it down.

The ugly blue ones are pretty easy to pick up too.

Critical gear that small though, when I'm not using it, goes in a pocket or my HPG Kit Bag.

You can get the Swedish Firesteel rods only (no handles) from bensbackwoods.com if you wanted them more compact to hide/duct tape somewhere.

http://www.bensbackwoods.com/servlet/Categories?category=Fire%3AFerrocerium

...or you can just make fire easy...no need to over think....just sayin'

Have you started a fire in November elk season on the West End of the Olympic Penninsula after a month of rain? Easy is relative...

What is the advantage of the 2.0?

Is it just the increase in the number of "cycles" available?

Is it a bigger, more skookum unit?

Exactly

To give you an example. We take a yearly trip to St Regis MT and go rafting. It is so dry there, all you need to start a fire is a handful of twigs from any tree in reach and one match. I dare you to try that in North Idaho or Western Washington.

Oops, I read back and see you throw sparks and blow on a whistle. My bad.

OK. While in the big city yesterday, I went to REI. You bastids talked me into a V2.0.

Thanks, I guess. <grins>

REI really does have a 20 dollar cover charge


Just for [bleep] and giggles, here is pretty much my Fireworks, V8.7.


I've always had an axe or hatchet on me in the backcountry, that's not really Fireworks, but it's in the same "possibles" category, as is a knife. The Fireknife was gift from a good friend, and now that it's chopped up a couple deer and proven itself worthy, it now lives in my HPG kit bag. So does that little 1 Oz Nalgene bottle full of Coughlans fire paste. EdT was spot on in his review of the Fireknife (It's lightweight, useful, and cheap enough that if you abuse it to death you aren't going to cry) I know for a fact that I can use those two to make an emergency stick fire next to any creek or river in Montana should that be all I have on me.

The rest... a Bic, 2.0 Firesteel, damp proof MRE matches, Fatwood and Birchbark all ride in a Zip-loc freezer bag in my possibles bag. With what I have there, and my brain, I can make fire anywhere, anytime, and for a couple months if I wanted too. Weight on the whole deal??? I don't give a [bleep], it's worth it to not be a statistic.

Birchbark is one of my favorites to pick up along the way in my AO. When you can find it dried and peeling off the tree, it's as good as napalm. What you see in that pic, I tear into about 1/4" strips, then grind it up in my hands to make "sparkdust" A Firesteel will easily ignite it and it burns long enough to ignite kindling the size of half pencil size. The Fatwood is new to me, but I'm wondering why I didn't play with it sooner. Shavings I get with my Fireknife I can ignite with my 2.0 Firesteel, but not the Fireknife. I plan on trying to make some sparkdust with Fatwood shavings that have been through a rock mortar and pestle and see how that catches spark.

Anyhow.... That's what works for this backwoods hillbilly.

Oh, I'd love to see more pics like mine on this thread....

This thread is why I decided to try out Fatwood. Glad I did too.

Book matches?

I know it's not cool, but is anything going to beat some Fire Ribbon and a working Bic to start a fire? Keeping it going is going to take dry fuel any way you cut it.

A friend of mine, prone to excess and tolerant of heavy packs, takes a road flare and swears it once saved his life.

I prefer piezo lighters. Trying to spin the bic's wheel and hold the gas pedal with cold fingers is too hard to do.

The piezos can usually be found at tobacco shops.

I know.... There's a reason for that. On the inside of the cover is my quad tool for a 1:37,500 topo map. Plus, it can make fire

quad tool?

But guess what I did find today (instead of shed Mule Deer antlers)?????

My favorite

Then you peel it, smash it up in your hands, wad it up....

Then nuke it

and violah....


There were plenty of dead standing lodgpoles around, I know that with what I had on me, I could've built a bon-fire if I wanted too. Mostly, I was just practicing being a hillbilly before I came home and made steak fajitas.

I just got lucky on capturing those images. I stuck my Cannon in the snow, on a 5 second delay, and then shoot 10 pics at one second intervals

Today, I couldn't believe how much more horsepower the V2.0 has over the earlier Firesteels. Just dinking with it today, I couldn't believe what you can get away with lighting in the way of tinder.....

There's no 'h'in 'voila'....

Great pics! Birchbark is wonderful stuff and the paper kind peeled out like you found is the best. Birch was common where I used to live in the Interior of BC. I am pleasantly surprised that you could light it directly with the fire steel. Y'all are convincing me to go back and buy a V2.0

Here's a pic of a grandson roasting a hot dog for lunch on a minimal fire in late November along a coastal river. We were meandering back roads, looking at spawning salmon, practicing fire building, etc. It had been raining or snowing and melting for three weeks, with some soggy snow still around and was raining at the time. The driest squaw wood we could find is propped up almost over the small flame drying. We used more fatwood than usual to get something going, and split up larger dead wood with an axe to get past sodden wood to merely damp stuff. The creek behind him is full of spawning coho and chum.

You guys know that the LMF type steels can be used with sandpaper? I have a "micro kit" that is TSA compliant that I never have to give up. It's transparent so I don't even have to open it to use my button compass

There are some #16 fish hooks in there now. One can always seem to be able to count on catching dumb minnows.

The long bag is a fold up buck saw.

The green match case is UCO stormproof matches, if you turn half of them upside down you can fit 36 matches and a couple of extra strikers instead of the regular 24.

The paracord lanyard has a scraper, firesteel rod, soft magnesium and jute twine tied into a fob. You can get the scraper, firesteel and magnesium from firesteel.com. I originally got the set from the Paracordist but I don't think he sells them anymore.

The longer the trip and nastier the weather I carry more Fatwood, which I get from these guys.

http://www.greatgreenapple.com/hearth/fatwood/index.shtml

I like the idea of a necklace of Fireworks... I think it would go well with my eyes

Oh, and first chance you get, look over a GB Outdoors Axe. Your mini will wind up on the classifieds.

It's not a mini, it's the wildlife.

I was thinking of going up to the small forest axe or the regular forest axe.

Aside from the collar, what is the advantage of the outdoors axe over the two forest axes.

The lanyard isn't for wearing around the neck, it just keeps the items together, good way to get hung if you catch it on something.

Dan- One of the fellows at he ECR had the new Gransfors. It certainly is tempting, the only thing I'm a tick Leary of is is resemblance to a Hudson Bay axe, which are prone to head problems. I'm hoping the steel collar combined with the simple fact that it is a GRANSFORS will lay my worries to rest. I've a Mini and have no bones with it, but I do like the extra snap that the outdoors axe affords. It's a slick little number and I'll be listening along in earnest as you keep putting the miles on yours.

I learned something new, never in a milion years would I have thought you could order lighter pine off the internet.

CHAR CLOTH

I haven't seen anyone even mention it - it's what the old timers ( trappers with sparkers) used to start fires.

You can make it by taking a tee shirt cutting it into 2" by 2" pieces (or whatever fits into your container well), putting a huge bunch of it into a small air tight paint container, poking a single hole in the top with a nail, and then putting it on a camp stove on high and watch smoke roll out the hole, when it slows down stop and let it cool. What you get is cloth that looks like charcoal but feels like material of a propane lantern - and it catches sparks and glows as the embers start to catch.

Go to this site and you can see somebody is making some

http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-Char-Cloth/

Heck of a fun thing to play with, and who doesn't have old Tee shirts .

If you mix Char cloth with anything that is harder to start but burns long you have a good setup.

Char cloth is relatively unheard of today, but it's a heck of a neat thing to do on a weekend with a kid, and flint and steel.

it's wild how char cloth picks up sparks, essentially char cloth is charcoal in a thin fabric form that catches sparks and keeps them alive and burning.

Bumping this up, Sierra has FireSteels on sale.

http://www.sierratradingpost.com/light-my-fire-scout-firesteel-fire-starter~p~3626w/?filterString=s~fire-starter%2F&colorFamily=99

http://www.sierratradingpost.com/light-my-fire-firesteel-20-fire-starter~p~5693p/?filterString=s~fire-starter%2F&colorFamily=01

RockChucker30 posted a video on SeekOutside's website showing how to make firestraws with pixi sticks.
http://seekoutside.com/giant-pixy-stix-fire-straws-in-an-altoids-tin/

I've made a few firestraws with just soda straws but started thinking. Why not some sealed cotton balls in something more compact. Thought about the Foodsaver vacuum sealer. So I made some firestarting packets of vaseline soaked cotton balls sealed in Foodsaver vacuum plastic. They aren't vacuumed, just sealed.


I made several, they are sealed and waterproof and will pack down into an altoids tin or some similar container.


You can light the whole packet with a lighter which I tried out or cut and partially pull out the cotton ball and it will fire right off with a firesteel which is what I did in this photo. They seem to burn about 4 minutes.


Just trying some different alternatives. I think this is neat as everything stays weather sealed and dry and packs flat. A couple could be carried in a fire kit or just thrown in a pocket.

That is slick

You can do the same thing with vaseline worked into cotton patches in an empty plastic snuff can.

Vaseline is pretty much waterproof in a snuff can.

Anybody tried to wet a vaseline soaked cottonball? I'm wondering if they'll light, really they can't absorb water much can they?

So true... The first time I saw fat wood for sale; I just chuckled and thought "grab an axe, and go for a walk"

I just tried it the melting vaseline will cause the match to flare up but the cotton will not light. This was a soaked cotton ball I don't know about a damp one.

A sustained flame from a lighter will get a soaked pj cottonball to light, but you need to wring the water out first.

Here's an article on how to make fire straws from petroleum jelly soaked cottonball and giant pixy sticks.

http://seekoutside.com/giant-pixy-stix-fire-straws-in-an-altoids-tin/

Yeah, that's a good video. I made some with regular soda straws. That was the inspiration to seal some with vacuum seal material. (See previous page)

And thanks Irving_D for trying out the soaked cotton ball. Glad to know they will light if the water is wrung out first.

I think another factor is how much vaseline is used and how well it is worked into the ball.

I use the cotton cosmetic squares. I've found that they stick to each other well and can be sort of gummy. I've made some with vaseline and a little mineral oil. The oil seems to soak the cotton better and still burns well especially with vaseline in the mix. Haven't tried them wet, but think the oil is a benefit.

Another option to light your starter is 4 ought steel wool and a 9 volt battery, light weight, easy to carry, and good for a few lites in wet weather.


Phil

Went looking for some fatwood today. There is an old burn with lots of downed pines. This is a place not far from here. The view is high, looking off of the Blue Ridge Escarpment and across the Piedmont.


Found some good wood at the base of a broken pine. Not sure if it is honest to goodness "fatwood" but it is very resin-rich and can be lit with nothing but a match.


It was a cold day with spitting snow flurries and high wind. I got a pretty good handful. Put with what I have already collected and I have plenty for my kit. Probably more than I'll use. I just don't make that many fires when out and about. Enjoyable day anyway and as good excuse as any to get out.