The Art of Fire Starting

Buttercup: "That's the fire swamp! We'll never survive!"
Wesley: "Nonsense! You're only saying that because no one ever has.”
-The Princess Bride by William Goldman

Sometimes you just have to start a fire without matches. Perhaps your single engine plane goes down while you’re flying over the Alaskan wilderness or you lose your backpack in a tussle with a bear. Or it can be as undramatic as an extremely windy or wet day which render your matches virtually useless.

For detailed descriptions of the methods below check out 9 Ways To Start a Fire Without Matches

Friction Based Fire Making

• The Hand Drill fire method is not for the faint of heart. It’s probably the most difficult of all the non-match based methods. It requires bone dry wood, tireless hands, and gritty determination. It can take 15 minutes or more to build up enough heat.
• With the Fire Plough technique you cut a groove in a plank and rub a sturdy stick up and down the grove to create enough heat to ignite some tinder.
• The Bow Drill is a variant of the Hand Drill. The spindle stick is attached to a bow like device for faster and easier spinning. It is harder to set-up but easier to create the spark.
  Flint and Steel It’s always a good idea to carry around a good flint and steel set with you on a camping trip. They will work when wet.

Lens Methods

• On a sunny day you can focus the energy of the sun with a magnifying glass, eyeglasses, or binocular lenses. You can intensify the beam by adding some water to the lens. Angle the lens towards the sun in order to focus the beam into as small an area as possible. Put your tinder nest under this hot spot to ignite.
  Note: reading lens or far sighted eye glasses will work. Near sighted lens won't focus light in a point.
• You can create emergency lenses from a water filled balloon or condom. Keep the size small so you can manipulate the water lens to be as round as possible. The focal length is very short, you'll need to put the lens just 1 to 2 inches from the tinder.
• You can also carve a lens from clear ice with a knife. The ice must be perfectly clear, about 2 inches thick in the center with tapering edges. Polish the surface of your ice lens with the heat from your hands.
• Coke can lens. Polish the bottom of a soda can with chocolate, toothpaste, or ash to make it super shiny. Tilt the bottom of the can towards the sun and place your tinder about one inch away to light it.

Batteries and Steel Wool

• You can ignite steel wool but stretching it out and then connecting it to both ends of a battery. A 9-volt battery works well for this.
• Another battery solution: if you are in a broken down car your car's battery and or alternator can make a ton of hot sparks by causing an arc. Even a “dead” car battery will spark.

Bottom Line

Creating a spark, while vital, does not a fire make. You also need tinder that will ignite easily and hold the flame long enough for you to pile on small twigs to grow the fire. Excellent natural choices for tinder include tree sap, dry leaves, grass, pine cones, moss, and fungus. Man-made tinder includes charcloth or other fire starter products that you should carry in your survival kit. One survivalist recommends coating cotton balls with some petroleum jelly. Another person recommends soaking your tinder with an alcohol based bug repellent or hand cleanser to help it light. Dryer lint makes good tinder and I'm told you can light snack food like Cheetos and pringles chips.