What’s camping without a flickering campfire at night or a roaring fire in the morning to cook delicious and nutritious meals? It’s not exactly as fun, many campers would say. Aside from food, water and shelter, fire is among the bare essentials you need when camping or backpacking. Being a well-prepared camper that you are, it’s vital to know how to start a fire without matches.
Why is Fire so Important when Camping?
The benefits of having a fire in your campsite is simply incomparable – you can cook using a camp stove but if you’re camping during early autumn, a roaring campfire will warm the body and spirit.
The following are the top ten benefits of building a fire, which are providing…
- Warmth during cold nights
- Heat to cook camp meals
- Heat to sterilize water for drinking
- Heat to dry your wet clothes and other stuff
- Heat to melt snow and ice into potable water
- Light for the campsite as well as for your torches
- Smoke to use as rescue signal
- Smoke to ward off those pesky bugs
- A means to scare away wild animals
- A feeling of security and comfort
Fire is a primal need for man. It provides heat and light for that sense of security and comfort when you’re in the middle of the wilderness. Without it, you will have to enjoy ready-to-eat meals at camp, which don’t taste close to a warm, fresh off the fire pit goulash. How can you enjoy one of camping’s all time favorites – s’mores – without a campfire?
7 Ways to Start a Fire Without Matches
There are seven different ways on how to start a fire without matches. You may want to master at least two or three methods just in case you suddenly find yourself in one of a camper’s worst nightmares – a rainy, cold night.
1. Friction-Based Fire Making: Hand Drill
The hand drill technique is perhaps the easiest, how hard can rubbing two sticks be? Yet, most seasoned campers would agree that it’s the most difficult to learn the right technique. Aside from getting it right, you also have to pick the right type of wood to be used as spindle and fireboard. You have to maintain a good speed but this can be difficult given that you’ll only be using your hands to rotate the spindle.
2. Friction-Based Fire Making: Two-Man Friction Drill
Two heads are better than one, and two sets of hands is definitely better than one when it comes to this string variation of the hand drill. Since there are two people involved, the ability to maintain the necessary speed and pressure to create fire is achieved more easily. In this variation, one person applies downward pressure on the drill while the other uses a string ( a thong or shoelace) to rotate the spindle rapidly.
3. Friction-Based Fire Making: Bow Drill
If you’re looking for the easiest technique to master, the bow drill technique is the one you’d want to learn, plus it’s also the most efficient in maintaining speed and pressure to create glowing coal. Make a notch at the edge into the fireboard and attach a sturdy string to a stick bow. Place a good piece of firewood into the notch, bear it down with a socket, then catch a loop of the bowstring, and saw back and forth until you see a glowing coal.
4. Friction-Based Fire Making: Pump Fire Drill
The pump fire drill is a really ingenious way to start a fire invented by the Iroquois. It uses a flywheel to create friction – and then, fire. As in the hand drill, the fireboard and the spindle are made from softwoods while the crossbar and flywheel are made from hardwood. You put a hole in the middle of a rounded hardwood, force the spindle in, and attach the crossbar to the spindle with sturdy string. Wind it up then press down, repeat until you see a glowing ember.
5. Friction-Based Fire Making: Fire Plough
In this fire starting technique, you will not be needing any tinder since it supplies its own as you move out small bits of wood as a result of friction. Choose a good piece of softwood for your fireboard and a slightly harder wood for the shaft. Cut a groove in your fireboard and plough or rub it using the tip of the shaft. By doing so, the friction results in tiny pieces of the fireboard that will light up as the temperature increases.
6. Spark-Based Fire Making: Char Cloth and Tinder Bundle
You must always have a char cloth in your emergency kit. Before you go camping, prepare your char cloth by cutting strips of any 100% pure cotton materials and set them on fire. Once they have blackened, smother the fire so they don’t turn into ash and test them out by striking spots into it.
A small tinder bundle will also help making fire easier. Collect lichens, dried grasses, and shavings from the inner bark of poplar, aspen and cottonwood trees to form your tinder bundle.
7: Flint and Steel
Another good and easy way to create fire is to strike steel against a piece of steel, which will generate sparks as you do so. Other variations of this method are using magnesium shavings and quartzite instead of flint. In all three, what you do is strike them with steel until the shower of sparks ignite your nest of tinder.
These are fairly easy ways on how to start a fire without matches. With practice and proper selection of tools, you’ll become a master fire starter in no time, with no need to carry a box of matches. Once you’ve got your fire going, keep in mind the camp fire safety tips. You may find it easy to start a fire but you certainly don’t want to know how hard it can be putting it out.
Choose any of these 7 methods and you’ll know how to start a fire without matches.
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