Lighting Fire With A Fire Steel
Whether you're a Bushcraft expert or newbie, being able to start a fire is a must. For this purpose, a fire steel is your best friend - working under any condition, it's the most reliable way to produce sparks for a fire. To catch the sparks, we'll use birch bark for tinder and we'll use feather sticks to keep it going... I hope.
Finding the Ideal Wood
I'm back in the woods, looking for the right wood to start our fire. For this experiment, I want to use birch bark for tinder to catch light. Birch bark has natural oils that not only keep moisture out, but also serve as fuel, making it an ideal fire starter. I'll walk you through some simple ways to identify and extract it.
Making Feather Sticks
Feather sticks are really useful when very dry wood isn't available. They can take some effort and skill to make, but when made properly, they allow you to kill two birds with one stone: the concentrated curled shavings on one end serve as initial kindling and the thick baton on the other end is your larger source of fuel.
Man Make Fire!... and Coffee
Finally, after gathering the different fuel sizes, I use a fire steel to ignite it. With a little bit of bushcraft improv, I made a makeshift coffee filter to enjoy a hot drink by the fire... And Monty makes a guest appearance!
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Thank you. I have a question. What if you were walking in the woods without any tools and ran from a bear and got lost? You need a fire. What would you do to start one without tools?
Friction fire lighting! You can make all the materials you need from what’s around you. BUT, doing it from scratch is very very hard. I have done it with a knife and paracord. You can make cordage and you don’t need a knife but it’s all way harder without both.