The Best Survival Fire Starter

Why You Need A Fire Starter

Whether you’re hiking or camping, a survival fire starter is necessary to have on hand at all times. Here are just a few of the things you can do with this survival tool:
- Signal for Help: This is especially important in an emergency situation. If you ever run into trouble, you can use it to create a fire and signal for help.
- Keep Yourself Warm: You can use it to light kindling to keep yourself warm on colder outdoor excursions.
- Cook Food: Unfortunately, camping stoves can often be bulky and heavy to carry around. However, a fire starter is compact enough to fit in the smallest part of your pack, and lights fires effectively to cook food over.
- Boil Water: Using this tool, you can start a fire and boil water over it to create hot cocoa, teas, or coffee. This can also be useful to sterilize the water for drinking.
- Keep Animals Away: Since animals can be a threat to your survival, you can use the fire starter to create a torch or fire to keep animals away.

Types of Survival Fire Starters

There are many different devices you can use to light a fire. Here are a few of the sorts of fire starters:
- Steel and Flint: This old-age method uses flint to strike steel which leads to sparks that can ignite kindling and start a fire. One of the plus sides of this method is that it will work even if you are camping in wet conditions.
- Wood Friction: One of the oldest ways to start a fire, it only requires two pieces of wood and can help start your fire quickly.
- Matches: This is one of the easiest methods to light a fire since it only requires a single tool that does the work for you. All you have to do is strike a match against its matchbox and place the lit match in your kindling to create a fire.
- Lighter: If you smoke, you’ll have a survival fire starter on you at all times. All you have to do is take your lighter, switch it on, and light kindling to get your fire going.
- Battery and Wool: With the use of a 9-volt battery against steel wool, you can create sparks to light a fire in emergency situations. Plus, this method is effective in wet conditions as well as dry ones.
- Solar Powered: Solar spark lighters use the energy from the sun's rays to ignite a piece of tinder. These starters have reflective surfaces that concentrate the light onto on spot and start a flame.

Things To Consider When Choosing Your Fire Starter

When choosing which survival starter to get, consider the following:
- Weather Conditions: It’s important to first see if you are camping in drier or wetter conditions since some fire starters will work better in these conditions. Also, consider which fire starters to get if you are camping in the winter in comparison to the summer.
- Portability: You never want a fire starter that is going to weigh down your pack. Instead, opt in for one that can easily fit into any one of your compartments, as well as one that is lightweight and durable.
- Easy to Use: Using wood on wood to light a fire is an old-age method but can take a lot of time to start anything. Instead, choose a product such as a lighter than can start a fire in seconds.
- Waterproof: Survival means living in conditions that may be cold, damp, and wet. This means that you’ll have to look for a fire starter that can still be of use if it gets wet. So, buy one that specially advertises in being waterproof.

How To Start A Fire

Fire and survival go together more than you’d like to think. To survive longer in the wilderness, you will need to be able to start a fire quickly, without a lot of tools. Here are a couple different ways to help you start a fire in no time:
What you need:
- Large, open space
- Fire Starter
- Tinder
- Kindling
- Logs
When camping outdoors, one of the first things you will have to do to setup your campsite is starting a fire to cook on. However, most campsites these days come with a designated fire area that is away from bushes, trees, or grass. If there is no designated area at your campsite, work on finding an area away from flammable vegetation. Next, gather some tinder to start your fire with and lay it upright to form a teepee. Finally, you’ll want to light that kindling using your fire starter.
Once your fire’s flame catches all the tinder, work on adding bigger logs as fuel to make your fire larger, until you have it at the desired height. However, wait until your fire is settled and hot enough before you plan on boiling water or cooking over it.

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