Most people understand that the ability to get a fire going is one of the most fundamentally important survival skills to learn.
But far fewer people actually understand how to build a fire or the different options for building one.
To build a fire, there are three distinct steps you need to follow:
- You need a tool that can ignite parks or a small flame, such as matches, a lighter, or a flint striker.
- You need something that can take those sparks or small flame and turn it into a larger flame.
- You need kindling and fuel to make that fire larger and sustainable.
The good news is that there is no shortage of cheap and easy DIY methods for getting a fire going.
Cardboard and Wax Fire Starters
Do you have any cardboard and candles on hand? If so, you can build an efficient DIY fire starter with them.
You simply need to cut the cardboard up into smaller pieces, and then immerse the pieces into the melted wax until they become saturated.
Related: DIY Candle Lantern From a Soda Can
Allow the wax to harden and cool over the cardboard, and then place the wax-coated cardboard into Ziploc bags to keep them in good condition.
When you bring the wax-coated cardboard into contact with a small flame from a lighter or match, it will ignite very easily to get a good fire going.
Q-Tip and Vaseline
This is a cheap and easy way to get a fire going and uses commonplace household products.
Simply take the fuzzy part of your Q-Tip and cover it liberally with Vaseline. Then bring the Vaseline-covered part into contact with a flame from a match or a lighter, and it will light up and burn bright.
Just like that, you’ll have a small and yet durable flame that you can then gradually feed more fuel into to get a fire going.
⇒ If You See This Plant in Your Backyard, Burn It Immediately (Video)
Note that as an alternative to Q-Tips, you can also use cotton balls.
Egg Cartons, Dryer Lint, and Wax
Take dryer lint from the clothes in your laundry, and then place the lint into the individual depressions in the cartons where eggs would normally go. Then pour melted candle wax over the lint.
Wait for the wax to harden, and then use a knife or scissors to cut apart the different parts of the carton.
You can carry the carton pieces in a Ziploc bag, and when the time comes to start a fire, take one out and bring it into contact with a flame or spark. It will ignite very easily.
Rubbing Alcohol and Cork
If you have an empty bottle of wine, don’t throw the cork away! If you simply rub that cork with rubbing alcohol, which is flammable, the cork itself will become very flammable as well.
To start, cover the entire cork with the alcohol. Then bring the edge of the cork into contact with a flame from a lighter or match, and it will ignite very easily and keep a small but durable flame burning.
Char Cloth From Old Clothing
Take an old pair of jeans or a T-shirt that you don’t wear anymore, and cut small pieces of the fabric away.
Place the pieces of fabric into a tin can, and make sure the tin has a lid that fits tightly over it.
Related: 15 Survival Uses for Old Clothes
Then poke a hole in the lid with a knife, and place it over some hot coals for about half an hour. By then, smoke should stop coming from the hole in the lid.
Remove the tin can from the fire, and open the lid to access the char cloth inside. When you strike a spark onto this char cloth in the future, it will ignite very quickly and help you to get a fire going.
Paper and Hand Sanitizer
Hand sanitizer is also highly flammable and can be used to help get fires going.
Simply take a little paper (it can be a napkin, paper towel, magazine, old newspaper, tissue, or whatever you have on hand) and crunch it up into a ball.
Then leave a small part of the paper hanging out of the rest of the ball, and cover this with a little bit of the hand sanitizer.
Then when you ignore that part of the paper, the flame will grow and transfer over to the ball, where you will have a strong flame going.
There are no shortage of ways to get a fire going, but these above six methods are all very reliable and dirt cheap.
A good strategy is to have, at minimum, two reliable emergency fire starting methods in three areas: your home, your car, and in your survival kit or bug out bag.
To that end, at least pick two of the above methods and include the materials needed to ensure those methods can happen in each of those three areas.
This will ensure that no matter where you are, you can always get a fire going in an emergency.
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Fire is what’s coming to all of us.
“STAND” with GOD and ISRAEL.
Don’t fall for the deception.
That’s what satan wants from the weak people.
They are falling in line with the end times. just as satan predicted.
stay sharp
PS: better to STAND with the ONE, that’s has the POWER to send you were “HE” wants you to be.
Your choice…
Elections have consequences as many conservatives stayed home then voted. Demoncrats are easy to manipulate as seen with Bidenomics in charge an open southern border. DEI, CRT an other manipulations are taking down the land of the free and home of the brave.
When you lose what your purpose is on earth, we get what is happening today. People are being reprogrammed with lies. We are listening to organized religion, listening to scientist, atheist and plain fools who got into office.
We can get our real holidays back, not the fake holidays the Marxist want.
Do people know what the real story is of July 4th?
Not some three day alcohol and barbecue day, it’s more than that.
The American story told in Marxist truth is revisionist to the public education young minds of mush are getting.
Yes we don’t have to read the bible 24 hours a day, go to church every Sunday to be religious or a Christian. The belief in God is important as we see these open border illegals flooding America and Islamic extremist are rearing their ugly heads in protests around America. Non-christens, radical Islamists are drumming up hatred before they start a violent throat cutting vengeance on Americans in the coming months and years.
Obama-Biden, now Biden are giving our enemies access to our heartland. These Demoncrats, RINO’s, liberals in both parties don’t care. They live in gated communities with armed guards. We the voting taxpayers are left defenseless with the stupid gun laws the make against us to protect our families.
Those bureaucrats spend money here there than for our America. They kick out veterans out of their residents such as hotel, motel rooms for illegals to live. Leaving vets homeless an our occurring homeless less safe.
The present government does not care or represent the American taxpayers, the politicians, zuckerburg, google, Soros, no they want the great reset, America last. Elon Musk believes in the open platform and Trump have the power to expose the truth.
God help us, we are not perfect, but the last private gun owning nation speed bump to the one world govt or really the antichrist.
Which side will we be on?
Pray to God our nation does not go up in flames by illegals and Islamist’s!
President Joe Biden’s pro-migration border chief is opening new processing centers for Muslim migrants, amid pro-HAMAS riots in U.S. cities and just after Congress granted $3.5 billion more for migration within the $95 billion aid package for Ukraine and Israel.
Ukraine-Israel Aid Bill Includes ‘$3.5 Billion to Supercharge Mass Migration from the Middle East’
“Not only did the ‘Foreign Aid’ package do nothing to secure our own border, it included $3.5 Billion to supercharge mass migration from the Middle East,” said a tweet from Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO).
The inflow of Muslim migrants climbed rapidly under President Barack Obama. That inflow has helped to radicalize the Democratic Party and has imposed chaotic diversity on many communities, including elite universities and in Michigan.
Obama’s diversity is now a big headache for Obama’s vice president, President Joe Biden.
Biden’s deputies are now using the refugee programs as an adjunct to their diversity-expanding “equity” migration policy. For example, Biden’s deputies used the program in March to import 3,009 migrants from the safe and democratic countries of El Salvador and Guatemala.
They are also using the refugee funds to expand migration routes from many African and Muslim countries. In March, they pulled in 12,018 people from the Congo, plus 16,732 migrants from the Muslim countries of Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan, Iraq, and Eritrea, according to a report by Stacker.com.
He is now campaigning for reelection amid TV coverage of campus chaos led by resentful Muslim supporters of the Arabic HAMAS terror force. The protests are being accelerated as immigrant Muslims demand that Biden pressure Israel to end its counter-attack against HAMAS, which massacred more than 1,200 Israeli civilians on October 7.
The campus chaos is also backed by many Muslim voters in the swing state of Michigan, which Biden needs to win in November.
If you cannot find an outdoors man, look no further then the homeless as they have fire barrels to keep warm, they know how to start fires. The wooden bow method takes too long. The flint method does not always work in wet conditions. Wet need several ways depending on the weather conditions.
Try to learn at least two methods.
By 2038 all coal plants are being shut down, natural gas is being shutdown in all federal buildings as passed by the current president administration.
What will replace the coal fired plants to supply electrical energy to charge up your Bidenomics, China CCP electrical vehicles?
Bidenomics experts have socially engineered your collapse of America. 2025 they will propose trillions of dollars in taxes. Your going to pay increased capitol Gaines, we won’t be able to pay those taxes, you will own nothing.
50% of the economy, savings, healthcare, travel by the government. We have too much spending, government does not create wealth, it takes and takes. To give to others first, America last.
God wake these woke people up now!
Another definition of communism – DEI.
Vick’s Vapo Rub can be used as a substitute for Vaseline.
Don’t count on homeless being helpful.
Mainly it is the homeless veterans I’m concerned with. The VA system is pathetic as veterans can agree. The VA sent their doctors to the border to give medical aid to the illegals.
Homeless in general are drug and mental cases needing to be placed in a mental hospital.
The new homeless seniors an retirees through no fault are being forced out of their homes by high taxes of all sorts.
Biden needs room for the illegals and Islamist to be housed in.
The Americans can be forced out and live on the streets. The wealthy don’t care what happens to the poor citizens in America. If they did care we would not have open air an prostitution on our city streets.
The border wall would have been built while we drill for oil to keep our economy alive and well. The homeless vets suffer while Biden’s illegals live free on the taxpayer’s dime.
God is watching.
Cotton makeup rounds soaked in wax also make good fire starters, and you can also make these with used cotton rounds.
Dryer lint in a medicine bottle with a large glop of vaseline will get many fires going. Do not throw the empty lighter out. It still makes hot sparks for a long time. Many things can be stored in medicine bottles. Lighters, pine knots, char cloth.. Practice now and get good at building fire. Don’t wait until after the storm to try. Make a bow and block now. Make several and store them in vehicles, tackle boxes, bob’s. Practice. All the people above that wrote those long notes I hope are devoting time to learning how to survive. Point number one here. It won’t be the fire. It won’t be the food. It will be clean water that everyone will desperately want within 24 hours. Learn how to make a water filtering system.
If you are in the piney woods and can find pine knots they’re easy to set on fire and they burn even when wet. All you have to do is cut away the outside a little with a knife and expose the resin rich inside of the knot. You can light it with a match to lighter. It will burn for quite a while so you can get a bigger fire started.
That is good info!
Living in the southwest desert regions we use camel dung from Biden’s Islamic camel riders invading the southern border, just kidding.
The wood of mesquite can vary in color from dark brown with wavy, blackish lines to camel tan.
We have brush loads to burn, good article.
God bless America, in her tribulations under Bidenomics!
My ‘go to’ homemade fire starters are dollar store cotton balls, smothered with some sort of Vaseline type petroleum jelly material, any brand will do. Those are mixed up within a snack size zip-lock baggie and stored in a hinged metal tin (like an Altoids) with a few trimmed pieces of fatwood for good measure. This I wrap around the edges of the tin halves with electricians tape to prevent anything moist from entering it. That, and the tape is also a flame extender in and of itself when treated accordingly. Now you can pack the tin and forget it until it’s needed. I always pack a BIC lighter or two, even without the fuel, they make a decent spark source, and I have a good ‘fat’ ferro rod in each pack, mine and hers. We even take one backpack when on vacation because you just never know.
Prayers should always be your first option, not the last thing you try in desperation. If you need more than that, then fasting is a power booster to your prayers (that comes right from the bosses mouth); of course you have to be a true follower, not just a fan, or a “check the box” Christian, to have any hope of success. I only mean you have to have your heart and head right, knowing the word, and not some organized religious dogma as your ultimate basis. Cheers.
Excellent comment, most Democrat voters who are church followers of the pope have little clue the pope is a pure socialist antagonist of Christians.
Pope Francis uses first ever US TV interview to slam climate change deniers as ‘fools’ and insists ‘climate change exists’
Pope stick to your organized religion that helped the WWII Nazi’s flee to south America and the Spanish inquisition, no different then the Islamist have done.
Keep the watch fires burning for God’s second coming.
Why do we have all these critical & political replies here : maybe most should reply about the posting.
Because History is never studied, you are doomed to repeat it.
The survivalist movement of the 1970’s started what is now called the preppers or prepper movement of the 2024 present day.
Back in the beginning an not the referred pioneer days.
The weak ass president caused the same conditions we see today with Let’s Go Brandon. There were gas lines for scarce oil being imported because of the middle east OPEC. The economic conditions roughly the same as back then.
And you complain about being off topic postings.
The same naysayers were saying the same as you have.
Prepping has always been intertwined in political events, history proves so.
Ask someone who went through those days, that built the prepper movement of today. Prepping was not made in a vacuum.
The articles posted are good and sometimes needs some other comments too.
God is with those who prepare for the evil coming.
Prepping has been around since way before the 1970’s. Prepping in and of itself is not political. It is simply about being prepared for any situations. Does a natural disaster happen because of politics? You are apparently ONLY looking at prepping as a causality of political reasons and that just doesn’t make much sense.
There never was an oil or gasoline shortage in the U.S. in the 1970s! Gasoline rationing because of shortages was a hoax!
The so called oil shortages of the 1970s was created by the government and the major oil companies to get the prices of their products where they wanted them. Cushing Ok, one of the largest storage facilities in the country held the products so long it had to be sent back to the refineries before it could be sent out for sale.
Because it needs said….over and over and over, Paul.
Fritos make really good kindling
True story. Many other chips do as well.
I have an old waterproof copper container from my grandfather. Instead of a bugout bag he carried a fishing tackle box in his trunk. I got his fishing tackle when he died. The waterproof container is for wooden matches, it is full of seventy five year old wooden matches. I grew up using big wooden strike anywhere matches to start fires, great fire starters. These days I carry a couple of micro torches for camping, and use a bigger MAPP gas torch at home. You can light anything in any weather with a micro torch, much more dependable than Bic lighters, even better than Grandpa’s wooden matches.
It occurs to me how much sexier it is to play like SHTF is going to be a great and widespread Apocalypse, sadly for most of us SHTF will be a major health crisis for self or spouse that immediately changes all our plans and threatens financial difficulty or ruin.
Is this the craziest article about starting fires and not one mention of a magnifying glass, broken glass shard, etc. focusing sunlight on something combustible?
I get that it doesn’t work in cloudy or rainy weather, but it sure should be part of any conversation about “cheap and easy fire starters”.
Glycerin and potassium permanganate.
Dry needles under any evergreen tree. Also real mistletoe, which can be found at the tops of evergreen trees, is loaded with natural oils and burns quite hot.
Dryer lint is only flammable if you are only drying cotton clothes. Lint from synthetic melts. Be sure to test what you make.
on mailpouch comment,, you are right,, during the late 60’s and early 70’s when the trans-Alaska pipeline was being planned the environmentalists, , and the government were trying to do what biden did to the canadian pipeline,, so, the Aleyeska pipeline company said to hell with ya,, the estimated cost went from about 13 million to over 12 billion!! Alaskans thought of it as a big joke and we all made a lot of money on a Cost-plus job !!
Dry Drier Lint with a Magnesium / Steel Striker. A few dry leaves, twigs, sticks and then some logs. Did not use any other fuels. Fire started with no problems.