Fire starting devices review

I have spent quite a bit of time the last 6 weeks looking into how to start a fire in an emergency. I will say up front that by far the easiest things to use are lighters or matches with an fuel like gas or diesel as the tinder.

The second easiest method is the old flint and steel with char cloth. The secret of the flint and steel is the char cloth. (I'll explain further later).

Lumped about evenly for don't even consider trying except for entertainment are the fire bowl, the fire bow, rubbing sticks, and the modern ferro rods.

Yup those brightly sparking modern fire making rods are very disappointing to actually use. The only way to coax a fire from these seems to be going back to the old char cloth.

When time allows I will explain further.

I've found if I can get a spark to land on a cotton ball, it will light a fire right away.

You'll have to show me that trick.  I tried for an hour straight, inside my barn, where wind and air currents were not a factor, and could only singe the cotton ball or get a very brief flame.  Nothing I could build a fire from. Those who think vaseline soaked cotton balls work also need to show me. The vaseline only served to smother the spark from all sources. When an actual flame was put to the cotton ball, both plain and vaseline soaked, they did burn enough to get a small fire going.

I'll start off with the older methods here, the principle of generating enough friction between two pieces of wood to create fire.  Yes under ideal conditions it is possible for a young healthy vigorous and industrial individual could create a small ember from which a flame could be coaxed.  Not me however. To create that much friction I had to use a cordless drill.  I chucked a hickory stick in the drill, and pressed it into a pine board with considerable force to finally get some smoke and a small ember.  So if anyone claims to be able to simply rub sticks together to build a fire, walk away, and start your own.

Now, to ruffle a few feathers. In a side by side comparison, conducted over the course of 3 weeks, by a person who had up to that point had only used matches and lighters to light a fire, I found the flint and steel to be more dependable and easier to master. Yes the ferro rod types do throw a much hotter spark. The spark from the flint and steel is orange and small and just kinda slowly dies out. By comparison the white hot spark of the ferro rod starters tends to fly off at some angle and burns out very quickly. The trick with either type is to catch that spark and coax it into an ember. After that the ember is coaxed into a flame and a fire is created by using ever larger pieces of wood or other fuel.

The slow lazy spark from the steel is easily caught in char cloth. The faster spark from the ferro rod can be caught, with practice, but it also seems to take a bit of luck. Those sparks are fast and move off at different angles every time the rod is scraped.

The method of catching a spark from a ferro rod seems to be to make a birds nest from dried grass and some bark. Place a piece of char cloth in the center of the birds nest, then place the end of the ferro rod down onto the char cloth. Scrape vigorously until you see a spark light the char cloth into a dim ember. Then it's a matter of gathering the grass to the ember and blowing it into a flame. Trying to catch the spark in any other way proved difficult. When I did manage to catch the spark in anything other than char cloth it died quickly and usually the tender was blown away from the tiny ember.

With the flint and steel, I caught the spark the very first try, and almost every try after that (27 out of 30 tries). With char cloth once the spark is caught in it, it simply will not go out unless it gets wet, or the cloth is consumed. The slower cooler spark from the steel falls at a more predictable path, and is consistent. To catch the spark from flint and steel simply place the char cloth on top of the flint, and strike the flint with the steel in line with the char cloth. I have yet to have to use more than two strikes to catch a spark.

I'll post more about char cloth (charred cloth) later.

The one we have is called a Blast Match. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYRKzdSXH34 I got them for family members a few years ago for Christmas. You can accidentally start a fire with them.

Very interesting

Yup, FF, that's one that the spark is uncontrollable.

But if you need a fire it will do the job.

I do recommend practicing with them until you can have a good fire started in just a couple of minutes. In a situation where these would be needed, you will not want to be fiddling and fumbling around. When you need fire, you need fire now, with minimal effort.