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Make a Fire

Learn critical fire building skills, primitive fire making, starting a fire with flint and steel, and making fire under emergency conditions, including rain and snow.

Modify Zippo lighter for survival fire making

Five tips to modify a Zippo lighter for survival fire making

 600 300 Survival Common Sense Blog | Emergency Preparedness
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Modify a Zippo lighter to be a more reliable source of fire in your survival kit. Learn why a Zippo is better than matches and a Bic lighter when needing to start a fire in an emergency. Pimp your Zippo to up your survival game.

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Pitchwood can usually be found at the base of a dead stick on a live tree.

How to: Find pitchwood, a natural, effective firestarter

 571 400 Survival Common Sense Blog | Emergency Preparedness
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If you are in an area with pine trees, you can probably find pitchwood, one of the most effective waterproof firestarters ever.

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Video: Try this easy way to make effective survival firestarter

 600 400 Survival Common Sense Blog | Emergency Preparedness
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One of the cheapest – and most effective – firestarters is cotton balls infused with petroleum jelly. Here is how to avoid the mess.

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make charcloth, survival firemaking

How to Make Charcloth: A miracle material for catching sparks and making fire

 600 300 Survival Common Sense Blog | Emergency Preparedness
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Catching a spark and blowing it into a flame is a skill that can save your life. Charcloth is a material that has been “cooked” like charcoal is at high temperatures until it becomes black. Properly-made charcloth will easily catch a spark and grow into an ember. This ember can be transferred to a tinder bundle and blown into a flame.

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Video: Dryer lint as wilderness survival firestarter? No way!

 600 300 Survival Common Sense Blog | Emergency Preparedness
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You stake your life on your firemaking kit components. My recommendation is to substitute cotton balls in any application you might be using dryer lint.

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Mike Stewart, bark river knives

Knife maker Mike Stewart discusses thin blades and batoning firewood

 300 168 Survival Common Sense Blog | Emergency Preparedness
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I like thin-bladed knives and think batoning firewood is highly overrated. Mike Stewart, president of Bark River Knives, and a knife industry legend, explains why today’s knife blades had to be made thicker because of the batoning fad. Here are his Facebook comments, used with his permission. 

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Feather sticks make good firestarting materials and they are easy to carve.

Five tips to make better feather sticks for firemaking

 600 318 Survival Common Sense Blog | Emergency Preparedness
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Suppose you need to start a fire, it’s been raining, and all the sticks are wet. Here’s how to make dry firestarting materials.

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build a fire, survival fire making, best fire making tools

Survival fire making | Old time flint and steel can be a lifesaver

 600 300 Survival Common Sense Blog | Emergency Preparedness
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One of the most effective methods of starting a survival fire is also one of the oldest – flint and steel.  Here is why you should consider adding a F&S kit to your survival gear.

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build a fire, survival fire making, best fire making tools

Video | Five tips to know about using a ferrocerium rod for emergency fire making

 600 300 Survival Common Sense Blog | Emergency Preparedness
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Your survival gear is as effective as your ability to use. Here is how to use a ferrocerrium rod to make sparks for firemaking.

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Video: Make safe, waterproof survival fire starter out of throwaway recyclable materials

 414 400 Survival Common Sense Blog | Emergency Preparedness
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Survival gear doesn’t have to be expensive – it just has to work. This very effective – and waterproof – fire starter is easily made out of throwaway recyclable materials you probably already have.

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