Building Your Fire Making Kit
The ability to make a fire successfully and consistently in the wild is one of the most crucial skills one can possess. It's especially important here in the cold North. Let's take a look at what I carry in my fire kit.
MY Fire Making Kit
I keep everything in this home-made deerskin pouch. This is the same pouch from my post, What to Pack? (only I didn't go into its contents before.) It keeps everything together and is pretty resistant to moisture.
more is better
The important thing here is redundancy. You'll want multiple ways of making fire to suit different conditions, and to best suit the natural tinders available in your area. Here I have a ferro (ferrocerium) rod and its striker, which is my preferred method. Ferrocerium is a metal alloy that produces a shower of hot sparks when struck or scraped, like a modernized flint and steel. This is actually a backup rod, I keep a larger primary one around my neck or in a pocket. Ferro rods work well with most tinder, can last for years, and even work when wet. The only disadvantage is they require a bit of practice to master.
other methods
Next, I keep a magnifying lens in its own protective leather pouch. These will last forever, and work well with tinder like punkwood and tinder fungus. Of course, they only work when the sun is out. I also carry a piece of horsehoof fungus for use as a coal extender, and a small tin for dry tinder, which we'll look at next.
Inside the tin I keep several types of natural tinder in case I can't find any in the area. This includes a sheet of birch bark, a small piece of fatwood, shredded cottonwood bark, and several pieces of coal fungus (sometimes called cramp balls). I also store some MRE matches in here to keep them dry. Matches have the advantage of producing an instant flame, but they don't perform well in poor weather.
Additional options
I like to pack light and small, so that's why I chose to include the above items. There are other items you might want to include, such as a simple butane lighter. These are usually pretty reliable, personally, I just prefer other methods. A true flint and steel kit would be a good addition, but keep in mind they require very specific or prepared tinder to work, such as char-cloth. A form of friction fire could be carried as well, like a bow-drill kit (stay tuned for a future post about this!) These are fun to use, but really take a lot of practice to get right. They also take up a lot of space. When using friction fire, I'll usually create a kit from scratch in the field, rather than pack a pre-made kit with me.
In general, I recommend carrying whatever supplies you are most comfortable with, but also, practice! Take the time to get lots of practice with newer methods.