Fire Starting Tool

In the market, there are various types of fire starting tools available, from windproof lighters, waterproof matches, magnesium flint, fire steel etc. I like to share my views on which is the best fire kit to have in a survival kit.

Wind Proof Lighters

These are the easiest and fastest way to start a fire, the set back is that it needs fuel to top up. In survival situation, this will prove to be useless in no time but definitely great for starting a fire during camping.

Waterproof Matches

Matches was invented thousand years ago by the Chinese but early 16 century the first friction match came to everyone's home. This was my fire starting option when I built my first survival kit in early 80's. Today, I am taking this out from my survival kit.

DIY waterproof matches

Magnesium Bar

Magnesium is a highly flammable metal. When shave into thin strip or powder, it burns brilliantly when in contact with spark but as a solid metal, it is very difficult to ignite. I have been using this Magnesium bar and it is not always successful unless you have a tinder furthermore it takes up space in the kit. This will be out of my survival kit. Few disadvantages using the Mag bar are the size and it cannot come in contact with salt water.

Fire Steel

A Ferrocerium material which is used by Swedish FireSteel. In today's market the newer Chinese fire steel are made with higher Magnesium content. It produces fantastic sparks better than Swedish Fire Steel but many do not know that Magnesium will react with salt water when come in contact. For more info, here is the Wiki link.

Tinder

All thess fire starting tool, you will still require some kind of tinder to light up a fire. There are many tinder options from natural tinder to chemical based tinder. Natural tinder is not easy to obtain unless you know where to look for and is not always easy to light up. Chemical based tinder can be petroleum, magnesium etc.

After many years of experience, I found the most suitable method for myself, the lightest, simplest and the best tinder is just an ordinary cotton bud. All you need is a short strokes on the Fire Steel and you get fire. Cotton with petroleum jelly coated burns longer, you can have them coated and store in a small Ziploc bag.

To sum up, the best survival fire starting tool is a FireSteel and lots of cotton bud tinders which do not even take up space.  I have decided to substitute waterproof matches for more cotton buds. As for now, I would have one EDC FireSteel and a Survival FireSteel in the Survival Kit. Those of you might asked why not use charred cloth,  I would only say why waste the time making charred cloth when cotton is so easily prepared. 

My DIY Mini E-Firesteel