I don’t think that the answer of
exactly what you carry is nearly as important as deciding for yourself whether you should carry something, or rely soley on natural sources of tinder. Here are my thoughts on it.
When you really start to think about the absolute minimum, I am talking bare minimum of items that you should have, tinder and open flame sure makes the short list for me. My requirement for what makes that list is that if it would take a considerable amount of time or resources to re-create in the wild. Notice I did not say “impossible” to recreate. Just a significant amount of time and effort. Let’s take a look at what I mean.
I do not think that most people would doubt that a useful item to have would be a knife. It is a tool that other tools can be created with to make things easier. If I don’t have my knife, I am not dead in the water. With the right knowledge, stone implements could be used. That would take a knowledge that I don’t personally have, so I am guessing here. But, it would take a knowledge of a particular family of rocks and how to process them appropriately to at least get a cutting edge. The resource could possibly be very distant from our location during time of need or difficult to find at best (low light). Most of us just come to the conclusion that that is too much time and effort and we carry a knife.
Primitive firestarting is something that I know a little bit more knowledgable about than rocks
I am confident in my abilities in that area, but not so arrogant to think that it is EVER a sure thing
I practice these skills (or more honestly, used to practice these skills) for a sense of enjoyment and the ever present “what if” scenario.
If we are talking about a true life and death scenario, I don’t want to have to use those skills. Why? Because more than likely, something is wrong already. Injury, cold, wet, dark, or any combination of those things. If you have ever tried to light a fire in rainforest-style dampness with only primitive methods, it is tough under non-threatening conditions. If my well being now depneds on it, I am going to want to do things as quickly and easily as possible.
With that said, two things are high on my list. 1) A source of open flame. I am not about to give up my firesteel for durability reasons, but the size an weight of a typical bic is hard to justify not carrying. 2) A chemical or natural substance capable of sustaing that flame for a few seconds or more. The reason for these two is that an open and sustained flame has a much better chance of drying out damp tinder than any type of sparking device. If you want the best chance of success, these seem to be the way to it, in my mind. If you agree with that, then it just becomes a matter of figuring out what brand and style of those devices is your personal favorite. Which is the fun part, right? Getting to play with gadgets? I mean, isn’t that why we are talking about this stuff
All of that is talking real emergency stuff though. If you want to talk recreation, I pretty much use neither of those two things : ) They are on the very short list of “emergency” items and don’t get regularly used in order to conserve them. I just regularly check them. For the casual fire I will absolutely use the firesteel or more primitive method and pretty much only natural materials. The “emergency” supplies are just that, and thankfully, I have not needed them.
The knowledge of being able to get by without some things does not keep me from being realistic to the facts of how difficult and time consuming some things can be.
B
