Outdoor Survival Skills: How to Start a Fire

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A comprehensive primer on self-sufficiency, “When Technology Fails” will give you the know-how you need to fend for yourself and your family in times of emergency or disaster.
A comprehensive primer on self-sufficiency, “When Technology Fails” will give you the know-how you need to fend for yourself and your family in times of emergency or disaster.
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Fire is essential to numerous aspects of human survival — from keeping us warm to cooking our food — so knowing how to tap this invaluable natural force is an important country skill.
Fire is essential to numerous aspects of human survival — from keeping us warm to cooking our food — so knowing how to tap this invaluable natural force is an important country skill.

The following is an excerpt from When Technology Fails by Matthew Stein (Chelsea Green, 2008). This excerpt is from Chapter 4, “Emergency Measures for Survival.”

Your ability to start a fire is important for staying warm in cold climates, for cooking food and for sterilizing water. I’ll start with simple instructions for building a campfire with matches and paper, and then proceed through the more Spartan methods, ending with the difficult process of starting a fire by rubbing two sticks together.

Starting a Fire With Matches

Materials

I like to separate my materials into piles by size. Start by gathering a couple handfuls of tinder, about one-third of a shopping bag’s worth of kindling, at least half a shopping bag’s worth of small sticks (1/2 to 2 inches thick), and at least a shopping bag’s worth of thicker wood (2 to 12 inches thick).

  • Published on Mar 28, 2011
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