Review Wet Fire Commercial Tinder

kgd

kgd

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Feb 28, 2007
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Okay, I'm in work avoidance mode. So the best thing to do to avoid work is to set things on fire. Today was a little bit of an indoor test. Well one done on my stove with a heavy vent fan in operation.

I just bought some commercial tinder called 'Wetfire'. They come in these little pre-packaged tablet packs and are supposed to be used as a fire starter. I decided to compare them to my more common commercial tinder, the Coglan fire sticks.

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The Wetfire tablets are synthetic (didn't bother to look up the chemical composition). The Coglan fire sticks are sawdust embedded in paraffin. There are plenty of other commercial products in each type. Wet fire costs about $7 for 8 tablets. The Coglan sticks are about $2-3 for 12 sticks.

So critical functions of these tinders are: 1) they can take a spark from a ferro-rod or flame from match or lighter. 2) they can sustain a burn for sufficient time to get whatever kindling you have available to light up. The longer the burn time the better. 3) they are compact in size, light and convenient to carry. 4) they work under adverse conditions such as after getting wet.

Since I never used WetFire tabs with a ferro-rod before, I was interested to see just how well they took a spark and how long they last. So the first test was basically just opening up a tab package and putting it on a frying pan and sparking it.

As I suspected, the table wont take a spark without breaking up a little powder from it first. It will probably take a flame directly from a match or lighter. Liberating dust from the tablet is a piece of cake. Just a little bit of light scraping with the ferro rod readily yielded crumbles of ignitable powder. One strike on the ferro-rod produced flame. I then just moved the tablet over the flaming powder and it quickly lit up.

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This is the tablet after 5 minutes burn time. Yes 5 minutes, that's pretty good!

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After 7 minutes, I did have to fiddle a bit, breaking the charred out crust to reveal a little bit of un-burned fuel in the center. Total burn time was 8 minutes. I have to say I was pretty impressed. Eight minutes gives me a lot of time to start my kindling into flame!

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Now for a little friendly contest. Well the stuff is called Wet-Fire!!!

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I also decided to do the same with my coglans firestick. Both tinders are hydrophobic, so the water is just for show. The water just beads up and runs off the surface of each tinder type.

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As before, I rubbed off a bit of the WetFire and sparked it. As before, one firesteel spark and it caught on fire. This time, I decided to see if I could use the tablet to heat my coffee. I used 300 mL tapwater (cold) in my mini-solist kit with a stove vent from my camp-heat set.

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This time, the slightly lower ventillation produced lower burn time. The tab went out in about 5 minutes. The water was hot, but not really boiling. You might be able to make tea of it, but it wasn't as hot as I liked. It would still be good to help warm you up.

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You can see that the tab exhausted itself by charring the surface without burning all its fuel. I probably could have fiddled with it to break it up before it went out, but I wanted this to be a no helping test.

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Second contestant was the Coglan firestick. I had re-wetted it again. I scrapped the powder off the stick with my scraper. The outer surface did retain more moisture than the wetfire tab did and I had to dig a bit deeper to get dry powder.

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Not as easy to light, but not horrible either. The powder too about 4 strikes before it lit.

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Again, I used the same temperature tap water and measured out 300 mL for comparison.

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The Firestick was successful at getting the water to a rolling boil.

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There was also plenty of burn time left over. Total burn time was 10 minutes, 15 seconds. That was without fiddling with it too!

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So to summarize.

The WetFire product does everything it advertises it is supposed to do it. It worked well, was easy to light even after it was wetted. For its primary purpose to start of fire, this commercial tindling will no doubt do its intended job. Burn time was a healthy 8 minutes. The burn time on its own was not enough to boil a cup of coffee in a camp stove.

The Coglan Firestick did everything the WetFire product did. It was slightly harder to start the powder after wetting because the surface does absorb a tiny bit of water. However, burn time was longer (> 10 minutes) and hotter and I was able to boil my cup of water with heat to spare from a single stick. The Coglan firesticks at 1/3 the cost of the WetFire seem like the better deal to me. A final note, the Coglans have less wrapping and are mostly made of natural products (sawdust) so I tend to think of it as a more eco-friendly product.

In this review, I'm going to give the win to the cheaper Coglan Firestick. Coglan gets a lot flack for its sometimes inferior survival gadgets. However, this is one product where they seem to have gotten it right!
 
Wet fire can be blown out and re used later.
It will also burn while floating in water

great stuff!

Rat Pack # 428
 
Thanks for the review - I carry the Coglan Firestick; bic lighter; firesteel; cotton balls with petroleum jelly. None of this is very heavy but it is nice to have back up in an emergency.
 
I like the Coghlans fire sticks. They seem to work very well for me. Keep at least one with me at all times.

Thanks for the comparison. :thumbup:
 
I love the fire sticks. They are my primary method of starting fires since they are so cheap. I carry both them and WetFire in my kits, but you have to keep in mind that the fire sticks are significantly larger than a single tab of WetFire. I'd imagine a similar volume of WetFire would be able to get a cup of water to a boil with no problem.

Regarding the composition, it's a proprietary formula for UST.
 
Cool thread Ken, I love to use experiments to avoid things too :D

Another great thing about wetfire is it's longevity. When I did these photos for a "sticky" ferrocerium thread elsewhere the cube I used was the cube that actually came in the Strikeforce 8 years ago and it functioned very well.


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thanks for that review and comparison ken! i was just about to grab some wet-tinder but looks like ill just grab some firestick locally. poor cast iron getting all chem'd up! :p
 
Good review, Ken. I've used the Coglan fire sticks before, but not the Wet Fire tabs.

My only question would be: how difficult is it to get the tabs out of the package when your hands are wet and freezing, or you're wearing gloves?
 
Well that is pretty cool how that wetfire fits into the strikeforce housing like that Mist!

Yeah, I'm not trying to knock the product too much because it does do everything it is supposed to do. The tabs are pretty convenient to tuck away here and there. However so are the firesticks and they can be broken down into whatever size you like. I can't see firesticks having any longevity issues. Not willing to do a 10 year experiment, but it is just woodchips embedded in paraffin. I'd imagine a given firestick will last just as long as a piece of fatwood will.

Maybe the compromise is to do as Storl says. Keep the Wetfire as an emergency use tinder and more commonly use the firesticks for regular firemaking. Or you can be a total cheap ass and just harvest fatwood around your local woods :D
 
dawsonbob said:
Good review, Ken. I've used the Coglan fire sticks before, but not the Wet Fire tabs.

My only question would be: how difficult is it to get the tabs out of the package when your hands are wet and freezing, or you're wearing gloves?
Click to expand...

The package has those nice little tear dimples in them. In a pinch I think you can bite one end of the package and tare it with one hand. Or you can just pound on the package with the pommel of your knife and the air pressure will burst it open like a back of potato chips :D
 
kgd said:
The package has those nice little tear dimples in them. In a pinch I think you can bite one end of the package and tare it with one hand. Or you can just pound on the package with the pommel of your knife and the air pressure will burst it open like a back of potato chips :D
Click to expand...

Cool. Thanks, Ken.
 
Very well done test. Thank you.

I have a cube of the wetfire and have always been curious as to how well it performs. Given the burn time you got, a small portion of the cube should be enough to start a fire.
 
I always crumple up the wetfire tab completly before lighting it to avoid extinguishment before the fuel runs out. Great write up :thumbup:
 
I did a test w/ my stove using wetfire (it's a wetfire stove) and esbit, for stove use there was no comparo- the Esbit was clearly better

however there is a wetfire tab in my kit for fire starting in wet conditions- as mentioned above it will burn while floating in water, amazing stuff really

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I too find it very easy to start w/ a spark
 
I have both and both are excellent but Wetfire will always light when wet and Coughlans will not. I carry so much tinder and kindling in my kits (PJ cotton balls, Wetfire, Tinder-Quik, waxed jute, Coughlans, and fatwood sticks) that I'm good in any situation. Out local Sportsman's Warehouse has the Wetfire for $5 for eight tabs. I don't make many fires on as a day hiker but I like being prepared. :D
 
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