I will readily admit to being something of a firebug. It’s one area where I absolutely go overboard when it comes to survival kits, camping supplies, and such. To be fair, though, fire is a critical survival need in many situations. My fire kit has changed a bit over the years, but I think I finally have it zeroed in.
If you’re going to put together a fire kit, it makes sense to give thought to what it should really be able to accomplish. Every fire requires three elements: Heat/Spark, Fuel, and Oxygen. My fire kit is equipped to meet each of those elements.
What You Need for Your Fire Kit
Heat/Spark
This is the element that most people think of when this topic comes up. It is what ignites the fire. It could be a spark, flame, or friction. I keep a few options in my fire kit for ignition.
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A simple BIC lighter is easy to use, relatively inexpensive, and just plain works in most situations. A step up from the BIC is the titanLIGHT from Exotac. The BIC is reliable unless it gets wet or too cold. The titanLIGHT is water-resistant due to the O-ring construction in the cap. But it can run out of fuel if you’re not paying attention to how often you’re using it.
I also keep a ferrocerium rod in my fire kit. I’ll be honest, I use a ferro rod more often than either of the lighters. The only reason for that is that I find them fun. When my sons were little, they really got a kick out of seeing the sparks fly.
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Fuel
This is what the fire consumes. For our purposes, we’re focusing on tinder. This is material that’s easy to light, and that will burn hot enough and long enough to ignite the kindling and such.
I keep a couple of tinder options in my fire kit. The one I turn to the most often is a Fire Plug from Black Beard Fire Starters. It’s small, lightweight, and very simple to use. Bend and twist the Fire Plug to loosen the fibers a bit, then ignite with a ferro rod or lighter. I maintain a small pouch of Fire Plugs in my fire kit. The pouch I use is the Pocket Possibles Pouch from Tuff Possum Gear.
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As a secondary tinder option, I have a piece of fatwood. This is sometimes called fat lighter or lighter’d. When a pine tree dies, the sap or pitch becomes concentrated in the heartwood and tap root of the tree. Over time, this hardens and becomes fatwood. If you scrape material from the fatwood, it lights and burns easily.
While a sharp knife works well for this, I keep a Multicard Scraper from Bushcraft Kelso in my kit. It’s simply a piece of high-carbon steel that has a sharp edge that’s great for scraping tinder. It also works well for throwing sparks from a ferro rod.
Oxygen
This is often overlooked. A fire has to be able to breathe. If it can’t breathe, it’ll die.
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While I don’t keep a bottle of oxygen in my fire kit, I do have something else that’s almost as handy. A fire bellows is an expandable hollow rod. You stretch the rod out, then point the narrow end at the base of the fire. Blow into the other end, and you can direct air exactly where it’s needed. This works far better than waving your hand or hat at the fire.
Container
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I pack my fire kit into an EDC Belt Pouch from Tuff Possum Gear. It holds everything nicely, with spare room in case I need to add to the kit for some reason.