Firemakers?

[brucec]

By the way, using gasoline or white gas to start a fire is dangerous enough to just be plain stupid, especially miles away from a burn unit. It only takes a second to screw it up. The pain of the burns and the way people will look at you for the rest of your life is not worth it. Plus I guarantee the smell of your burnt flesh will make your friends puke and while that's an amusing thought there are easier ways. Don't be another dumb crispy critter.

Ever start a charcoal BBQ before? Or prime a white gas stove? It's kind of the same thing. I'll admit these aren't the safest activities in the world, but a small amount of fuel applied before lighting really helps out with damp leaves and wood.

 

[chmsam]

Ever start a charcoal BBQ before? Or prime a white gas stove? It's kind of the same thing. I'll admit these aren't the safest activities in the world, but a small amount of fuel applied before lighting really helps out with damp leaves and wood.

No, really, you can do that? Wow. I've only been cooking and grilling for 40+ years but what do I know? I don't do that myself but maybe that's because charcoal started with any fluid lets you taste and ingest lots of petrochemicals and well, it just plain sucks, too. I will say that burned flesh does have its own distinctive aroma around the campfire though but it does tend to put some folks off their appetite. Dogs seem to like it though.

I've used a camp stove but still like a fire. Every once in awhile some folks try using a chimney stater and some paper because:
1). it works in 10 minutes,
2). there's no crappy taste,
3). it gets rid of waste paper,
4). it's safer and only takes one match,
5). you don't ingest or inhale petrochemicals, and
6). it's low tech and less work, too.

Of course since I'm an just a know nothing old fart and don't have much more than 30 or 40 years experience camping and backpacking (most above the treeline and never left a trace, does that count?) or with burns. Well, come to think of it, I have seen more than one or two serious second degree, the getting kinda crunchy stuff type burns caused by, well whadda ya know!... using gasoline and white fuel (and caused by far less than a Dixie cup full), but that probably doesn't count either. I'm really OK with that.

Heck, kid, people can do whatever they want and it's no skin off my butt. I'll try to help folks out for a little bit but after that stupid people are gonna get laughed at no matter how deep their pain. They aren't what I'd call innocent victims any longer so I don't care about them too much -- especially the ones who had others trying to help them in the first place but just ended up being rude.

 

[Diesel_Bomber]

I voted something else. There's a Bic in my pocket at all times(I don't smoke). The Bic will cover 99% of my firestarting needs and the ferro rod on my keys is a nice backup. The ferro rod is covered with heat shrink tubing to protect the rod, and so that the keys don't strike any sparks from it while it's in my pocket.

The equipment on my trucks includes lots of other options too. Water/windproof lifeboat matches, waterproofed strike-anywhere matches, steel wool, candles, MRE's, water, TP, medical stuff(Note that this is not just first aid, a first aid kit is meant to stabilize a person long enough for an ambulance to get there, that takes longer when you're 25 miles from the nearest paved road.), soap, etc etc etc. The distance I'm going from civilization and if I'm alone is what determines how much gear I carry on my person. If I wander away from my truck to take a leak, trip, and slide down a hill, I could wind up 500 feet away from most of my survival gear with a steep muddy hill and a broken leg to impede my progress back. What I have in the truck may not matter, what's on my person could be all I've got.

I've found that trying to aim the shower of sparks from a ferro rod or flint steel is a pretty chancy affair. I prefer to pinch the tinder between the rod and the striker so that there's pretty much nowhere for the sparks to go but into the tinder. It takes some practice to hold the striker, tinder, and ferro rod right, but makes a fire much more reliably. Less picky about how dry the tinder is, too.

Whatever equipment you carry, make sure the first time you use it is NOT when you're out of cellphone coverage, injured, in pain, and in dangerous cold.

:buddies:

 

[Federal LG]

Swedish Firesteel

Always work for me (while camping, of course... I´ll not light someone´s cigarrete with a firesteel...)!