Cat tail fire starting help please

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Nov 25, 2006
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I have played around with cat tails for fire starting here and there a few times, but no major efforts. Today I made a hole in the snow and practiced fire starting with the tails, again. It was windy out and I semi tried to shield the fluff but it still almost exploded on light up with a fero rod. I would get small clumps to stay lit for about 3-4 seconds but that was it. I find the material to be insanely flammable, almost too so. Any tips on next stage build up ? I didn't have any dried grass at that location today and this was more or less spontaneous practice. So far I have found local dried grass easier to work with, but I have far more experience with that. The point of all this is to use locally available natural materials......The stuff goes up like a rocket.
 
Did you put other fine tinder on top of it before lighting it, or are you just trying to start a fire with cattail fluff(good luck, if so!)?
 
Did you put other fine tinder on top of it before lighting it, or are you just trying to start a fire with cattail fluff(good luck, if so!)?

I made a base of dried tails and semi tried to lite a few unfluffed heads on the clump. Cold and windy out, moderate effort level. I reached over and grabbed some dead flowery flammable looking flower looking brush and laid it on for the hell of it. I got no ignition with that flowery brush on this fast flashing fluff base.
 
You might try it in the center of a tinder bundle as an accelerant, rather than as tinder in and of itself.
 
Cat tail is "flash tinder" - and, as suggested, you definitely need more/other tinder in the bundle to keep it going...
 
Agreed. I'll use the cat tail as the flash tinder, usually in a small bundle with birch bark on the outside, possibly with some additional processed birch bark inside. The cat tail goes up and ignites the birch bark, which burns long enough to light the twigs I've collected. Once the twigs are going, add bigger and bigger sticks until I have a good sustainable fire at the scale I want it to burn.
 
Yes, magnesium is 'flash tinder' as well, you need it with other less easy to light tinders, then kindling, and make a big nest of it. You need a large amount of tinder to get things moving well, especially if you're using a ferro rod or flint and steel for fire lighting.

I started up my BBQ that way on Friday. Dryer lint, in a nest of dry grass, in a nest of shredded news paper then once that started I used it to light all the crumpled news paper I had under the charcoal tube.

C
 
I have. I like a cotton ball, greased or ungreased, surrounded by a tinder bundle. The Mg gives plenty of heat to start the cotton which starts the bundle unless it is wet.
 
Mix it with Birch bark for a great time. Without that dried grass or anything else to hold the flash tinder's flames. You can also keep mixing the fluff over on it self until other tinder is ignited. Here is a video I did using both methodologies. The real intent of the video was to use a field made striker aka crushed quartz with a firesteel but just the same cattail was used.

[video=youtube;qCxfcH4fzKc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCxfcH4fzKc[/video]
 
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