Firestarting Methods:

This is basically some cotton lint from the cotton socks stuffed loosely on one end of the rolled up paper tissue to act as a kind of a match.

The cotton lint is supposed to catch fire from sparks by an used up lighter without fluid and it should catch on fire and transfer it to the paper tissue and then the whole thing is of course transferred into the tinder under a fire wood.
At least that is the idea.

The man on the picture is of course Les Stroud and he successfully demonstrated the method in practice while filming the Survivorman show in the middle of a Georgian swamp.

This method can be seen also in the Survovorman show by Les Stroud.
He removed the projectile from a bullet, and then squeezed the opening so the gun powder wont disperse.

Then he fired the bullet with his rifle, right into the tinder nest of dry grass and wood shavings, all nicely blocked and secured with two dry wood beams from behind. And after several attempts he finally found some smoking piece of tinder and that was a success.

Flint, quartz, chert, any hard and sharp rock that can shed tiny bits of steel (any steel with a high carbon content and that rusts) and give a good amount of hot sparks that can land on any tinder that will ignite by a spark.

Tinder can be charred cloth (like for instance cotton shirt or pants. Les Stroud says his favorite are blue Jeans), also cat tail fluff, cotton, Birch bark’s dust, magnesium sawdust etc.

Ok, this one is kind of a cheat, because of the use of matches, but it shows how we can use most of the unusual but highly effective man made tinder in an extreme cold and wet conditions to still get a flame easily.

Man made materials like plastic, nylon, rubber, foam. Things like the duct tape or rubbery or foamy sandals can catch a flame a flame easily and maintain it for quite some time. More than enough for your firewood to catch the fire. And as you can see on the picture, Les is using thin and dry pieces of the internal part of the wood log, because those are dry unlike the outer bark which is moist. And also those thin edges are perfect for catching fire. And BTW that is the perfect way to make a smokeless fire too.

The accelerated oxidation of glycerin by potassium permanganate forms purple flames. Those strong flames are the result of an exothermic reaction of those two chemicals which are often used for personal hygiene and they can be a lifesaver if you happen to have them with you and you need a fire in cold and damp conditions or when your lighter or matches are not working. Both are contained in small waterproof bottles and you only need a couple of droplets from both chemicals to create that strong flame that can ignite any tinder. (The tinder on the image is a dry grass dung).

Hand sanitizer or any other flammable liquid that can catch a spark, or anything that has at least 75% alcohol in it, should be able to easily be ignited by  any kind of good amount of strong sparks, be it from a flint striker or car battery spark.

A little bit of petroleum jelly when spread on a cotton and sparks land on the very flammable petroleum jelly, makes the cotton ball to catch on fire easily and it holds it for more than enough to transfer the fire to the rest of the tinder and the firewood on top of it. So make sure you always have some cotton with you, and something to make sparks with.

Hm, ok this one is kinda of a cheat too, here Les uses a match to light a piece of cotton and paper. But the thing is that cotton can burn too fast and paper can burn too fast too and sometimes even stop burning half way through.

If you have a nice tinder of fine dusty dry flat grass, that is not a problem, but when you have twigs and wood to catch fire then a lip balm (wax) can make that flame to last longer..

This is actually a Solid Fuel Compact Folding Camping Backpacking Stove which is very light weight and small and foldable and can be used for many other things. It contains 24 chemical tablets which are actually fuel and they can burn in wet and windy and cold conditions.

The picture on the right shows Les Stroud using exactly that tiny little but a life saver stove while filming the Survivorman episode Stranded in Norway. He was all clothed up in lots of winter clothes and a sleeping bag around him, snow jacket boots made of car seat foam and tapestry. Sitting under the tree on parts of the car under him and around him and he used this tiny chemical stove to boil water with some spruce twigs. That tiny survival stove is excellent if you are mobile, you happen to be in an extremely cold and wet conditions, have no dry wood or any fuel and you need fire easy and fast.

Magnesium is an excellent tinder that catches a spark very easily and burns hot and ignites the rest of your material.

There are flint strikers that are equipped with a huge block of magnesium that can be shaved and used to make thousands of fires.

Basically any battery; car battery, 4,5V batteries or less, cell phone battery, led lamp,etc.

When you connect the positive and negative contacts with some tinder like cotton or paper and the current goes through the wire and wire gets hot, it will ignite the tinder.

This is in essence the same method as above but slightly different. What you do is carefully remove the glass covering of the bulb by using pliers or a stone but without disconnecting the filament.

Then you take some fine wood or grass dust and gently fill the space around the filament and then put more tinder over it like grass and wood shavings and then just light up the battery and you’ve got fire!

This method of fire starting is pretty hard and unpromising. It depends on many factors, like constant and strong sun, right kind of tinder and how dense ad dry it is, the angle and quality of the polished reflective surface of the bottom of the tin can. Les Stroud actually succeeded to make fire with it in Kalahari desert. He polished the bottom of the tin can with some piece of chocolate and sand then he adjusted it over the tinder bundle to focus the light from the sun on to the tinder and he went on doing other stuff and when he came back the tinder bundle was smoking. So it really does work.

Gasoline impregnated tinder bundle under some rocks and ignited with a flare (or just flare alone without gasoline) is a bit dangerous if you don’t cover it with rocks. But other than that its a very powerful, secure and fast way to get fire easy even in the wet conditions.
But you need to check the expiring date of those flares because otherwise they might fail.

On your right you can see a fluffed up piece of Les’s bandana tucked under some tinder and firewood . He needed to fluff it up, by grinding it on a rough stone and then pull apart the fibers a bit in the middle so it will catch the amber from his Cuban cigar easily. He used the cigar as a portable tinder bundle for transporting fire to his next destination, and then he just placed the hot burning cigar on the bandana and blew some air into it to start another fire. This is really simple but the important part is that the bandana was a 100% cotton.

Most of us when first time trying to make a fire without matches, we often start with some kind of a lens that focuses the sunlight in a bright and hot spot on the tinder that starts to smoke and burn. Like for instance using the magnifying glass (the bigger the better). That thing can ignite your tinder in the matter of seconds sometimes if the sun is very bright.
I personally don’t like this method because it is dependent on the sun’s availability and brightness. And i learned to prefer a fire-bow (bow-drill) instead the lens and I can make fire in 3-5 min with it. But if you happen to have a good lens with you, on a very sunny day it is worth trying it. The secret here is to have a very compact dense tinder like for instance; dry grass dung a pile of wood dust, dry compacted flat powdery dusty grass bundle, dry solid chunk of compost etc. Do not use a thin sheet of paper over a bundle made of straw. Straw do not catch fire good when used a magnifying glass and it just de-focus the light when it burns through, so does the paper.

Same as above, a lens, but made from a carefully polished piece of ice which can also focus light almost as good as the magnifying glass.

Or… you can fill the condom…with water!

And use it as a lens too.
I haven’t tried this one out but apparently it works.
Basically anything that can focus sunlight in a single spot and the material is transparent enough, you can use it to ignite the tinder.

And the last one in the lens series: Fire with a bottle.
You fill the glass or plastic bottle with water all the way up and use any part of it that has the ideal curved surface to act as a lens to focus light on your tinder.

BTW, years ago when I was practicing the bow-drill outside one sunny Summer day, I noticed that something was smoking near me, and it wasn’t my tinder bundle. And when I went to check it, to my surprise, it was small piece of a compacted dry black compost block taken out of the tiny flower pot and beside it was a big empty glass bowl with a very curved bottom that acted as a lens and ignited it. That piece of compost started smoldering so hot that i was able to put it in my tin can stove and bake a potato on top of it!

Fire piston consists of a cylinder and a piston that drives the tiny piece of tinder down into the cylinder so fast that it compresses air inside which gets hot enough to ignite the tinder. The tinder can by almost anything; Tinder fungus, piece of rope etc.
Fire pistons are usually made of wood. (many “primitive” tribes across the world are making those as their version of a home made lighter). Its not quite easy to make, because you really need to make a good air tight seal. They are also commercially produced from various materials like plexiglass, plastic and metal and they are really handy and can make you a glowing piece of tinder fast, but they do require a little bit of practice.

This is another friction fire method. The fire plow can be hard sometimes and there are a few variations of it either with just a canal and the ember collects on the end, or with a notch and the ember collects besides the board or with a cut on the end and a tinder ready and waiting for the amber on on end.
And then you just push and pull the stick up and down the canal to create the amber. The bad side of the Fire plow is that it uses a lot of energy and it creaks a lot. The good side is that you don’t need to constantly make new holes and perfect notches as for a spindle and fire bow.

This is a method of using a piece of dry wood, a thin log or a split wood and then put some natural cordage around it like a piece of wine or a root from a tree. Anything that will hold up the friction against the wood, long enough to make an amber This method is not easy but its still doable and tribes in Papua New Guinea are using it very successfully.

This method of starting fire without matches is I think the most unusual one and I haven’t seen any survival expert using it by now. But Lithium and water react very strong and can give a huge flame and sparks as you can see. So its a perfect way to light your fire bundle easily by either putting some lithium on the bundle and then use a few droplets of water or using a bit more water in a container and putting the piece of lithium inside to react and then hold the fire bundle on top of it to catch on fire. The only problem with this method is how to take out the lithium from let’s say Lithium Ion batteries in the emergency? And also Lithium is dangerous and toxic.

Saw these two silly clowns 8 years ago doing this. Looks like a pretty potent method for burning off your eyebrows and everything around you.

So it’s by using brake fluid + Chlorine, mix it up, and boom!

(back then these two legends used to have balls, not so much now).