Lighting Fires to Survive

In a survival situation, it is extremely useful to have more than one method of lighting fires.

Fires provide heat and light, they are a great morale booster, can be used to cook and heat water, dry out wet clothing, and can be used as a signalling device.

Most survival kits generally contain at least two items for lighting fires - military ones often contain as many as four.

To light and keep a fire going three things are needed:

• Heat
• Fuel
• Oxygen

Many survival experts teach these items in terms of a triangle. If you remove one side of the triangle the triangle will collapse and therefore the fire will go out.

Most survival kits will contain at least the following:

• Your first choice fire-starter - for most people this would be some form of gas lighter (eg a cigarette lighter).
• Strike anywhere matches, not safety matches. These should be kept in a waterproof container.
• Candle stub or night light. If you light a match, light a candle with it. This will help conserve your supply of matches.
• Cotton Wool. Many experienced outdoor people have found this to be one of the best tinders available, taking a flame or a spark very easily.

More advanced kit could include:

• Flint and Striker
• Magnesium Block fire lighter
• Magnifying Glass
• Friction Firelighting set

lighting fires is an important camp skill and preparation is the key.

A person must plan and prepare the fire carefully before even thinking about lighting. Many people have wasted time and resources feeding match after match into a useless pile of tinder.

Fuel should be graduated into piles from kindling (small and easily combustible) through to main fuel and logs (longer lasting and sustaining).

Tinder should be dry and as fine as you can get it, hence the cotton wool, in the basic survival kit. It is light, easy to pack and easily available. Otherwise, tinder could be dried grasses or leaves. Also it is worth considering the feathery heads of plants, which are available in autumn, as tinder. The tinder should be dry and fluffy. If it is not then buff it up by twisting it and rubbing it between the hands. Build it up until there is a fluffy ball of tinder.

Kindling is the next consideration. Fine twigs which are thin enough to catch light easily. If there is no kindling available, consider shaving pencil thick twigs finely into "fuzz" sticks with a knife, these can work just as well.

Now build up from pencil thick twigs to pieces as thick as the grip between thumb and forefinger. This thickness is all that would be required for a quick fire to enable cooking to commence quickly, but for an established camp, thicker sticks are needed.

In survival situations it is important to reduce the use of calories and cutting wood to a uniform size is unnecessary. The fuel should be left as it is and be end fed into the fire or laid across it to burn through.

To light a fire, build the smaller fuel into a teepee (Indian tent). Tinder at the bottom, gradually building up to the finger thick fuel. The teepee will enable the fire to burn upward, allowing good draught. Add in the other fuel as the fire gets established. On wet or damp ground, the fire must be built on a bed of twigs; this will keep the fuel off the ground until it has got going.

There is plenty of useful advice available about fire making in survival situations. The following is a small selection:

• Any time that you build a fire you should have more than enough wood to get through at least one night. Do not burn all of your wood at once.
• If you are using them, be sure to ration the fire starters. If the fire can be kept going all day then there is no need to waste matches or lighter fluid to re-light it.
• To improve the heating efficiency of the fire, a wall of wood or rocks should be built on one side of the fire to reflect more heat towards the person. This can also be used as a rack to dry any wet wood out.
• If a shelter has been made then extra firewood should be stored in it. This means even if it rains then a fire can always be lit.
• If you cannot find any dry wood, then split some with a hand axe or shave it with a knife, it may be dry underneath. The best form of firewood is standing deadwood.

Tidying up is one of the most important things to do when any fire has been finished with. This is for two very good reasons, one to prevent the fire from causing forest fires or similar and the other is to keep the environment in a good condition.

To tidy a fire, firstly ensure that the fire is allowed to die down and then using a stick the embers should be piled up. A well must then be made in the middle and water poured into it, followed by using a stick to stir in the embers to make a slurry. As a guide to the fire being out, the embers can be picked up by your hands. Scatter the remains over a wide area where they will not be seen and return any unburnt twigs or logs to where they were found. If there is a supply of water nearby such as a stream, water the ground where you have had your fire and replace any turf you may have cut.

When people are asked how to make a spark without using a match, they tend to come up with the following ideas:

• Strike the edge of a hard rock like with another hard rock or a piece of metal. This will make sparks, which must hit a spark catcher in order to start a fire. Using flint and steel usually requires a lot of practice and trial and error before it will work.
• Focus the light of the sun on some tinder with a magnifying glass, when the tinder starts to glow, blow on it until it lights a fire.
• A hardwood spindle being rotated on a softwood base. This will first produce tinder, and then will ignite the tinder.

These ideas may be at the forefront of survival techniques but there are better options. There are a few basic reasons why using professional fire lighting tools are better. First, these are not the sort of things any person really wants to be doing whilst kneeling in a forest in the dark and in the rain. Also, if it’s just mildly chilly, these activities will quickly elevate the body temperature to the point that a person no longer feels the need for an external heat source and loses all of their motivation. These primitive methods only work in ideal conditions or require a lot of time and effort. This is why many survival people use mechanical fire starters.

The importance of a reliable fire starter cannot be stressed enough. People need a fire starter that is operable with one hand in case of injury, won't run out of fuel, and never fails to light in the wind, rain, or snow. The ability to light a fire is paramount to any survival situation on land. There are many different types on the market but proven ones tend to be the best because they will have been tested in all conditions and have a host of testimonials from people who have been in a survival situation.