Experiment: Winter Fire Failure

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KennyB

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Jan 19, 2010
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It snowed yesterday, and after a good soak I wanted to try something that I've been wanting to do all winter: Start a fire with my ESEE fire-steel and the magnesium. Now, I'm a horrible woodsman, never really had anyone teach me and I can barely get a firestarted in the middle of August with a Bic lighter, but I decided I wanted to try it out just to learn some things, and I also got a new camera that I wanted to take some photos/video with so it all kind of lined up. Plus with the video, maybe you guys can see what I'm doing wrong.

Now, I'm not completely unversed in using a fire steel, but I've never done it before and I'm sure I wasn't aware of all the caveats before hand. The first thing I did was gather some leaves, and I scraped some bark off some kind of branch to get a little scrap pile. It was a pretty chunky looking pile though, and I don't think it had enough surface area, but everything was so wet that it just wanted to stick together.

I used my Kulgera instead of my Izula (SACRILEGE) because it had a very squared spine, but well after my camera ran out of time for footage I decided to use one of the uglier portions of the blade that I didn't sharpen well to strike on the edge itself, thinking that it would shower larger sparks.

Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself a little bit. I tried the ferro rod alone on the Kulgera's spine for a good bit, and it really wasn't doing anything at all that I could see. Just showering sparks really, but then between the lack of surface area in what I was trying to ignite and the fact that it was just above soggy, I never expected to get anywhere with that. So I shaved some of the magnesium off into some shavings. I tried to get them into a leaf so that it would catch sparks around it better. It nearly worked too, I did get some ignition on the leaf, but between the lousy job on the fire bundle, the moistness and my complete lack of speed in getting some oxygen onto the ember, I wasn't able to get fire.

I tried a long time after the video ended. I even tried shaving bigger chunks of magnesium off, and as I already said tried using the edge to see if that would work better. Shortly after the filming stopped, I remembered that moving the fire-steel over the knife instead of the other way around was what person recommended, and this started working much better for showering sparks, but I just couldn't get the magnesium to ignite more than once or twice, and when I did it was never enough time for me to get down there and give it some oxygen.

Okay, so here's some pics ( and for those with some spare time on their hands the youtube)

Here is the tinder pile after all was said and done. I definitely got some ignition on the leaves, but whether they were too wet, or if maybe the big leave surface just wasn't going to burn right anyway, I never did get any real fire. I suppose if I had been looking at freezing for the night I would have kept trying and would have been successful, but I think I'd have to do some serious work on the tiner pile first.

tinderpile.jpg


Here's some pics of the Kulgera's spine and the blade portion I used. Yeah, I know I shouldn't use the blade, but it was part of an experiment and I didn't think it would hurt it that much, plus that portion of the edge has always been troublesome and underused anyway.

firesteel1.jpg

firesteel2.jpg



And here's the firesteel after everything... I can't believe how much of it I used without getting fire.

firesteel3.jpg


Video:
[youtube]ftvdGfRuibI[/youtube]

I was hoping to be able to give the Izula a little more face time, but anyway, what do you guys think went wrong?
 
Take those dry leaves and rub them back in forth in your hands until you have them pulverized, almost powdered if you can. You need a lot of small pieces and surface area to get ignition. There are a lot of tricks you can try including pulling some fuzz off your socks if you have cotton socks or a shirt.

Also, try getting the striker down close to the tinder and yank the ferro rod back toward you keeping the striker still. This will keep you from hitting your tinder bundle and knocking it over, etc.

Fire starting is 95% preparation and 5% ignition.

Thanks for posting! Stay with it and keep posting your attempts!
 
Yep, it's all about surface area and dry material. I remember when I was younger destroying a ferro on a stack of random leaves. They never took a spark.

Think 'birds nest" or thinner for your primary. Practice, practice, practice. You'll get it.
 
adaman04 said:
Take those dry leaves and rub them back in forth in your hands until you have them pulverized, almost powdered if you can. You need a lot of small pieces and surface area to get ignition. There are a lot of tricks you can try including pulling some fuzz off your socks if you have cotton socks or a shirt.

Also, try getting the striker down close to the tinder and yank the ferro rod back toward you keeping the striker still. This will keep you from hitting your tinder bundle and knocking it over, etc.

Fire starting is 95% preparation and 5% ignition.

Thanks for posting! Stay with it and keep posting your attempts!
Click to expand...

Yeah, I was trying that because I've seen it various people doing it when watching videos of firesteel use, but this stuff was so wet that it wouldn't really "pulverize". Anyway to tear up wet leaves like that?

burddogg said:
Yep, it's all about surface area and dry material. I remember when I was younger destroying a ferro on a stack of random leaves. They never took a spark.

Think 'birds nest" or thinner for your primary. Practice, practice, practice. You'll get it.
Click to expand...

Ahh, I knew I needed some thin stuff, but the birds nest idea is a good way of thinking about it. I'm not sure though, I wonder if the stuff was just too wet to ignite, or too wet to break up small enough?

If I had gone with some wet grass do you guys think that would work better?

Also, I was goign to try some fuzz sticks, but thought I'd ask about them and save it for the next time. How do you use them? Just notch out little fuzzy bits, and then break them off the stick into a pile and shower with sparks?
 
If the leaves are too wet to break up they're just too wet. You'll have to search for drier tinder.

I've never had particularly good luck with leaves as tinder even in good conditions to be honest.
 
Flexxx said:
Um, no.

Try to find some dry material to start with.....
Click to expand...

What if there isn't any? The stuff I had was about as dry as I could find. I remember watching an episode of Dual Survival where Cody used some magnesium to start a fire in the pacific northwest and figured that's what one could use to ignite material that's not that dry, but I guess now that I recall he did dry the stuff out in his sweater first.
 
Bare bottom, scraping the barrel for tinder, split a piece of standing dead wood, quarter it, and make shavings out of the dry center.

Now, by shavings, I mean, thin, thin, thin, shavings, think paper thin. Rice paper. And create a pile of them. Thats your tinder. That is actually my prefered method anyways, but YMMV.

Prep your wood into toothpicks, pencils, and fingers. With wet wood, you will need to spend more time tending to the fire as a small creature, and constantly build to a roaring beast. In wet conditions, expect to spend at least 30 mins building only a little at a time. By the time you are putting your pencil sized wood on the fire, you should be ready for bigger pieces.

As a so you know, stack your wet wood around the fire in a C shape as you build. It acts as a wind break and gives your wood a chance to dry some before it goes over the fire.

Good luck.

All wet wood

100_1582.jpg


The end result

100_1583.jpg




Moose
 
Often times you have to do some searching or breaking up to find dry tinder. This is one spot where batonning comes into play. Find some dead wood that is off the ground--standing dead is best--and split it down to get to the dry wood in the center. If you make fine shavings and scrapings you can light those with a firesteel, but it takes quite a bit of time and patience to do it this way.

There are also several other tinders that you can find that will usually be dry even in generally wet conditions. Inner bark of trees such as cottonwood and cedar are two to start with. If you have pine trees in your area look for fatwood. Those are just a few to start with.
 
Listen to moosez45 and rocketbomb and you will have a fire in know time......:thumbup:

get everything you need before starting your fire, then your not rushing around trying to find material.
 
There is some real good advice up there, but how about starting with something that you know will take a spark, like some drier lint. Get your technique down and confidence up, then move on to harder conditions once you have proven to yourself you can do it.

It is 0F out here right now and I have about 2' of snow in the backyard, but I know I could walk outside with a bow and drill and have a fire in about 30 minutes, less then 10 minutes with a fire steel. I started learning in idea conditions, nice dry summer days with nothing on the line but time to kill. Now as long as I can make an ember I am laughing to a warm fire no matter what I come up against.
 
adaman04 said:
Also, try getting the striker down close to the tinder and yank the ferro rod back toward you keeping the striker still. This will keep you from hitting your tinder bundle and knocking it over, etc.
Click to expand...

+1 :thumbup:
I learned this tip here at BFC a while back, and it's good advice.
This technique (keep the striker still, move the firesteel) also helps you drop the spark with greater accuracy onto your tinder.
 
+1 for the dryer lint. But that is cheating I suppose if you are trying to start the fire strictly from what you find in nature. You could also try to find a good chunk of tree bark(the dryer the better) and scraping down in to it to find a dry area......works sometimes.
 
Another technique is to place the tip of the firesteel into the tinder bundle and then scrape it.

Check out this video by tonym :

[youtube]6OTrqA0vfss[/youtube]
 
When using magnesium one of the best ways I have found to use it is to make some type of little fire basket with it. Then when you spark it off the heat coming from the mass of burning magnesium is pretty intense. It rained all day here yesterday, if I get a chance today I'll re-do the photo series and actually start a fire.

DSC_4801.jpg


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this is a excellent skill to master,,,,but remember this is a last resort kind of thing...so keep practicing and you will get the hang of it....but never never go out in the wild without a bic or other lighter...before i get bashed let me reinterate...this is a great skill to have and may save your life under some conditions..but as a rule in a true "survival" situation i want things to be easy as possible so i can move on to other tasks to save my butt...
 
While Tony's method (video) for striking a steel is sound, I prefer to hold the knife steady over the tinder and rip the fire steel backwards. This works especially good for tinder that wille asily blow away if hit by the knife or fire steel.

Good thread!
 
drew1095hc said:
this is a excellent skill to master,,,,but remember this is a last resort kind of thing...so keep practicing and you will get the hang of it....but never never go out in the wild without a bic or other lighter...before i get bashed let me reinterate...this is a great skill to have and may save your life under some conditions..but as a rule in a true "survival" situation i want things to be easy as possible so i can move on to other tasks to save my butt...
Click to expand...

You're spot on drew. Fire doesn't weight hardly anything. Carrying 3 knives may be heavy, but carrying a Mini Bic, some matches and a ferro rod AND TINDER doesn't weigh anything.

Kenny as these guys have said, if your tinder is wet, you're fighting a losing battle. You need to either hunt for tinder in a spot that is out of the rain or get to the dry wood in the middle of something. In your vid, that stick you had that had the fuzzy exterior; being out in the elements it was wet so it couldn't help you.

A lot of people get butt-hurt about batoning fire wood using a knife. Well when the dry wood is in the middle and you have a knife, it's a pretty good way to get to the dry wood don't you think?

One other thing, people generally don't use enough magnesium. They want to put a few shavings down and try and light them. Back in the day I was at this odds and ends store and they had a 2 VHS set by this guy I had never heard of named Ron Hood (:D). He said he liked a pile of magnesium about the size of a quarter. That way you do it once and it works instead of doing 5 attempts on little piles.
 
I'm all for a BIC lighter. I gots 2 with me all the time. That said, if you don't prep your tinder and wood right, it don't matter if you have a Bernz-O-Matic torch, fire will not be yours. Some up there said 95% wood prep, 5% ingnition. I have to agree.

Moose
 
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