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Friday, June 3, 2011

How to Make Homemade Fire Starters

Original Article

Having the means to make a fire in a moments notice is essential in a survival situation.  An external heat source can help deflect hypothermia, or even cook a hot meal when you really need it.  Carrying firestarters with you while you are away from home can be a great way to add a little survival insurance to whatever situation you happen to find yourself in.

To save a few dollars, I make my own fire starters out of household items that I would normally throw away.  To be thorough in my preparedness endeavors, I have put them in each of my family’s 72 hour kit, in our vehicle emergency supplies, and in our camping gear.  To make the fire starters, all you really need are 4 items:                                                                                                                                                                     

- cardboard toilet paper roll or paper towel roll                       
- dryer lint or cotton balls
- worn down candle stubs or crayons
- natural twine

Instructions

1. Melt the crayons or candle wax down until liquefied.  This makes the fire starter windproof.                                                                                           
2. Stuff the dryer lint into the cardboard roll and tie with a piece of natural twine.  The twine will be used as a place to light the finished fire starter.

3. Dip the stuffed cardboard roll into the wax and roll it around until it is completely covered in wax.                                              
4. Set dipped cardboard onto a paper towel or piece of paper to dry.                                                                                                                
5. Once the fire starters are dry, I typically cut the cardboard rolls in half and vacuum seal them along with a few matches.      
    

Change It Up If You Like

This recipe can be changed around to suit your needs.  If you do not have cardboard rolls, use cardboard egg cartons or cut up an old cardboard box into strips to roll the dryer lint up in.

Another method is to not use the cardboard at all.  Just roll the lint up into a ball formation and dip the dryer lint into the wax and allow it to dry.
If you do not have candle wax, try using melted crayons, old canning wax or use paraffin wax.
Another method of making good fire starters is by dipping cotton balls into petroleum jelly.  This method is a good one, but I like to find ways to re-purpose the trash that I already have on hand.

How to Make a Good Fire with a Fire Starter

Once the firestarters are lit,  they will burn effortlessly so that you can add moss, small twigs, leaves and dry kindling to help the fire grow larger.  Depending on how well the fire starters are stuffed, they will typically burn for 5 minutes on their own.  This should give you plenty of time to get a fire started.




1 comment:

  1. I've used a similar style of fire starter for years. I read about it from The Frugal Zealot. Instead of TP rolls, she recommends using cardboard egg cartons. Then after it dries you just tear them into single use pieces.

    I do use my TP rolls, but instead for them I roll up junk mail into a tight roll and insert it into the TP roll. Then I use it like a normal branch for home heating in my stove. This produces a lot of extra ashes, so I wouldn't use a ton of them at once but it's still nice to use them entirely up.

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