Making Fire

I wanted to talk about fire, today, because it’s one of those ubiquitous things. It’s just there. We don’t really think about it, in our world of Bic disposable lighters and all-weather matches. But fire is one of the prime things that makes us human. We harnessed it. But if we lost access to our modern methods of starting fire tomorrow, I think most people would be shit out of luck. That means no heat, no ability to boil water for purification, nothing to cook over… It’s an “end of civilization” issue.

I have many levels of fire making tools in my personal kits. With my ren faire kit, I always keep disposable lighters for their ease of use. I also have strike-anywhere matches, just in case I have issues with the lighter, because it does happen. In my cutlery box, I keep a second disposable lighter, as a backup. I also have a tin that contains flint, steel, charcloth, and tinder. Back when I had a very old gas stove in my kitchen, I used to have a sparker, which looks like a giant safety pin.  You pull on the sides of it, and a metal bit goes over a flint, and you get a big spark every time. It’s much easier than flint and steel, for sure, but works best with gas of some kind.

Let’s look at the various types of fire making we have, starting with easiest.

The easiest way to start a fire is almost always going to be a lighter. Whether you’re using a fancy Zippo or a cheap dollar store disposable, the idea is the same. You flick the little wheel or press the button, and it makes a spark while releasing a small amount of gas. Voila, a magic fire emanates and you are ready to go. They are very portable, fit in a pocket or backpack with ease, and they “just work.” Even in a windy environment, you can usually get them to work. In my opinion, carrying one of these easy lighters is essential. However, there are cons. Be aware that most disposable lighters will stop lighting after a year or two. Any type of lighter like this can accidentally get the gas button pushed, and empty itself of gas at an inconvenient time. The flint can and will run out eventually. In other words, lighters of this kind are not replaceable. As a note, I consider “everstrike matches” (ie the kind that have a wick and fuel) to be this type of lighter as well. They stop working when you run out of fuel, so they cannot be depended upon.

In a SHTF moment, they will get you through the emergency but do not expect them to continue to be useful beyond the three month mark. I know that sounds alarmist, but they are not an item to be dependent upon. Any item that can be used up is not something to depend upon, and should be replaced with a more lasting item or skill at your earliest convenience. This does not mean you shouldn’t have or use lighters; quite the contrary. They are wonderful for those moments when you simply don’t have the time or energy to work on lighting a fire any other way. In an emergency, that will happen frequently. Especially for short term emergencies like power outages and local disasters, they are invaluable.

After lighters, matches become the item of choice. There are several types of matches, ranging from cheapie book matches you can still get at bars and motels, to fancy strike-anywhere matches that are long to allow for starting fires without burning fingers. As with lighters, they are similar enough to be considered a single item for our purposes. Matches are extremely portable, and can be tucked into a pocket, purse, or even a wallet. For camping, I keep a small mason jar with a tight fitting, waterproof lid filled with matches. On the inside of the lid, I have some of the scratch paper taped in place, which means my matches are always dry, and kept with the striking material at hand. I like this method, because it’s hard to lose the mason jar, and if you have the jar, you have everything you need to start your fire.

The negatives associated with matches are similar to the ones for lighters. They’re something that gets used up and thrown away, and so eventually, you run out of them. Matches are easy to run out of, too, because a slight breeze can put them out. This means that you may use two or more matches to light a single fire. They’re very prone to being blown out. They’re also very susceptible to moisture, and if they get wet, they usually stop sparking. While you can then dry them out, many will never regain their ability to be struck to make enough heat to cause them to light.

Electricity is another method of starting fires. Many of us have played with using a flashlight battery thrust into a pile of steel wool. The battery causes the steel wool to ignite, and you can use that to get your fire going. This is an “emergency only” method because it uses the battery up very quickly, and that battery would be better suited to keeping your flashlight or radio going.

Solar fires can be done if you’re somewhere sunny and happen to have glass that’s convex (ie fatter in the middle). If you can’t read at a distance, your lens is probably concave (mine is), which will make it nigh on useless for making a fire. If you have a convex glass, let the sun shine through the lens and into a pile of tinder. Watch closely, and be ready to blow VERY gently when the tinder begins to smolder. If you want to use this method, be sure to keep a magnifying glass in your EDC. Also note that water in a see through baggie, if done right, is a convex lens and can be used to start a fire. In theory.

Now we come to what’s called “percussion fires.” These are fires started by knocking items together to create sparks. Flint and steel are the oldest version of percussion fire we are aware of, and they are still used today. In our modern society, we also have magnesium and ferrocerium rods (aka ferro rods), which are used in a similar way. Use the striker (or steel) against the flint, magnesium, or ferro rod to create sparks. The sparks should be caught in a small pile of highly flammable tinder, then nursed into a larger flame. These are NOT easy methods to use, even with the modern strikers available. They require a lot of practice, and you must continue to practice or you will lose your skill quickly. It’s a necessary skill, in my very strong opinion. Flint and steel can be found relatively easily in our world, and therefore this is a type of fire making that will continue to work for a lifetime. It is not a consumable.

Friction fires are some of the most difficult types to make. These include methods like a bow drill, hand drill, and pump drill. No matter how you look at it, friction fires are not easy. Even the experts fail at them, and so it’s absolutely imperative to practice the skill if you want to acquire it and keep it. The general idea is that you use a string to cause a thin dowel of wood to spin quickly against and/or within a pile of tinder. The friction of the wood dowel will cause the tinder to heat up and eventually ignite. It’s absolutely necessary to have good tinder, twigs, and small sticks on hand to feed this type of fire. It’s a lot of work, physical work, and it often takes time. It doesn’t work well in the rain, however. Wind, too, tends to make it difficult to use this method.

As with all types of prepping, you should always have more than one method of making fire on hand at any time. Two is one, and one is none, after all. Don’t fall into the trap of “knowing” that your method will be working when you arrive at your destination. Practicing is the biggest part of making fire, though. This is a skill that decreases over time when you’re not practicing it. Make a habit of starting a fire at least once a week using several methods. This will keep you ready for the moment you need it.

“When you need it” might not be as far away as you think. Not because of any kind of civil war or zombie apocalypse, but because sometimes you go camping and need to make a fire, and realize you’ve left your lighter and matches elsewhere. I’ve done that, and it’s embarrassing, and it could be a real problem if you’re not near other people. I was lucky enough to be able to “borrow” fire from a neighbor, but you might not be.

This brings me to the concept of “keeping fire.” Back in the days before convenient fire lighting, humans would carry fire around with them. Fire bowls were used in prehistoric times, right up until the invention of matches. Until we had an easy, repeatable way to create a fire from scratch, it was easier to carry an ember around with you, than to sit down and spend a few hours creating one “the long way.” The link takes you to a tutorial on how to carry fire safely, and it’s definitely worth looking into. It’s a skill that’s often overlooked.

Banking a fire in a place you’re staying is another way of keeping the fire from dying. In the winter, my family largely uses wood for heat. This means our wood stove is kept going 24/7. Short of getting up in the middle of the night to feed it (which we sometimes do if it’s THAT cold out), the next best method for keeping it warmish is to bank it. You get a good bed of coals in your hearth or stove, and you put a nice, punky or extremely dry bit of wood on top of it. Then you close it down, either with doors (in a wood stove) or with ashes and possibly a metal cover (on a hearth). This will keep the ember alive until morning, and it will require only a bit of tinder on it to get it blazing again.

There’s nothing quite so satisfying as opening the wood stove and seeing that tiny curl of smoke come up from the ash. When I find the coals, I encourage them back to life with a bit of tinder (usually birch bark, simply because we have so very much of it around us), and then I blow gently. Once the tinder has caught, I add small bits of wood, then larger, then larger, until we’re back to having a blazing fire going. Having that ability is incredibly powerful!

Remember, too, that fire equals light as much as it is also part of heat and shelter. Fire that can be carried from room to room comes in a variety of styles. History teaches us about oil lamps as simple as folded circles of clay with oil in them (see picture to right), as well as simple things like rushlights and tuna can candles. Paraffin candles are in the list of things to cherish, if there’s a long-term emergency, because once they’re gone, they’re gone forever. Simple oil lamps can be kept running with animal fats such as bacon grease, tallow, or fish fat. You can even use olive oil or vegetable oil.

In addition to fire making skills, there are even more skills for how to capture and encourage fire. I make my own fire starters, and they work ridiculously well. I use wood chips from AWA’s shop, stuffed into an egg carton, then filled with melted wax. I happen to have a huge amount of food grade paraffin wax that I got for cheap, but I also save all my candle ends and melt them down as well. I melt the wax in a #10 can floating in a slightly larger pot, because you can’t heat wax directly or it can catch fire. That would be BAD. They’re essentially candles, and they work very well. If you’re in the mood, you can stuff some dryer lint into the wood chips or shavings, but it really isn’t necessary. If you don’t have a ready source of good paraffin, you can always haunt second hand stores. They often have huge ornamental wax candles that are useless today, and ugly as sin, but that melt down just like every other candle.

Another way to make a spark get larger is to use a cottonball dipped in petroleum jelly. I usually keep at least a few of these in a baggie in my Get Home Bag, because they’re small and water doesn’t bother them. Making them is simple. Just take a cottonball and dip it into a tub of Vaseline to pick some of it up. I use gloves when doing this, and I squish the Vaseline into the cottonball. I put the cottonball into a ziptop sandwich baggie, and I’m done. I will make 15 or so of these at a go. When you need to get a fire started, add your spark to the cottonball. Any dry bits will easily catch (that fuzz is extremely flammable), and the oily Vaseline will become the fuel to keep the fire going.

You can’t talk about fire without also talking about putting fire out. From a modern perspective, I try to always have at least a small fire extinguisher on hand. If, for some reason, I cannot have an extinguisher with me, I’ll be sure to keep a big pail of water by my fire. If the fire won’t be helped with water, I’ll switch to whatever works. Remember that oily fires and grease fires will just float on water, so dumping a bunch of water on it will just spread it around. You want to smother the fire, so cover it with a pot lid, if it’s small enough. Leave that cover in place until it is cool to the touch, to be certain the flame is out. Baking soda or salt will also smother flames, but do not EVER use flour or baking powder, because they are combustible! For a large fire, use an extinguisher, if you have one rated for grease fires. Alternatively, you can keep a fire blanket on hand. These are useful for so many purposes, including putting them over an active oil fire.

If you have any questions, let me know. If I don’t know the answer, I’ll go research and get back to you! Maybe we can have a NH get together where we all try out the skills of making and extinguishing fire!