It’s a common refrain in outdoors circles, that some sort of backup fire starting method is the most essential survival item a person can carry into the field. I don’t disagree with that. It’s also a common refrain that a person should carry two or three fire starting methods, so they have a backup, in case their primary fire-starting system fails them. While I don’t disagree with that either, in my experience and observation, this is where the problems start to arise.
Typically, in “bushcraft” and “survival” circles, some self-professed expert will espouse something like a Bic Lighter and some petroleum-rubbed cotton balls as their primary means of starting fires in the field, followed by something like hurricane matches, and then they’ll have a ferro rod or a traditional flint-and-steel kit as their tertiary plan. The idea behind this is that the Bic lighter and cotton balls is the easiest, simplest, fastest, and most reliable means of starting a fire in the field, under trying conditions. That’s not inaccurate—sometimes, in some places—but just given the last sentence, I bet you can see the problem with that approach, can’t you?
Let’s say you’re Bushcraft Bob; you don’t have a lot of actual, hands-on experience in the field, but by Gosh, you’ve read all the books and watched all the YouTube influencers, and you know what is what. So, you go to the woods. It’s a little, short 10-mile day hike, but you’re Bushcraft Bob, so you’ve got your three different types of fire-starters with you, and you’re ready for catastrophe to strike. Well, if you’re in the western mountains, like we are, there’s a pretty good chance that your catastrophe is going to involve cold weather conditions.
Did you know that a butane lighter won’t work reliably at temperatures below freezing? That’s right, the temperature at which butane turns from a gas to a liquid is a mere 31.5 degrees Fahrenheit! Fortunately, if you keep your lighter in your trouser pocket, there’s a fair chance that, under normal conditions, your body heat will keep it functionally warm, even when the mercury drops close to 0. Outside of an emergency situation then…say, you fell through the ice on the creek, or you slipped and fell on the ice and got rolled down the hill through the snow…it will probably be adequate.
In reality, in wintertime, when an emergency situation is most likely to actually require the use of a warming fire to keep you alive—versus the psychological crutch of a fire for companionship in warmer weather—chances are significant that your Bic lighter is not going to work when you need it. Whether that’s because it’s simply too cold, or because the thing got drenched in water when you fell in (Oh, you didn’t know they don’t work when they’re wet!?) the drink, is irrelevant. Your “primary” emergency fire starting method doesn’t work, when you actually need it.
That’s okay though, because you’re Bushcraft Bob, so you’ve got a secondary ignition source, in the form of hurricane matches, kept reliably dry in a waterproof matchsafe. Fantastic! As long as you’re not so cold that you’ve lost finger dexterity, and you can unscrew the cap of the safe…and assuming you don’t break the matches in your frozen, ham-handed attempts to strike them alight…which is far more common than most infrequent outdoorsmen realize.
Assuming you can reliably start a fire with your hurricane matches, they’re a much more reliable cold weather solution than a Bic lighter is. They don’t care how cold it is, as long as you’re not so cold you cannot light them successfully.
But, for the sake of argument, let’s say, for whatever reason, you can’t seem to manage to get a fire going with them, so Bushcraft Bob, whips out his trusty ferro rod scraper. It’s a fine choice (actually, I hate ferro rods, but that’s an irrational hatred on my part, and I own that). It doesn’t require fine motor skills to use, so your fingers being borderline frostbit is a non-issue. It doesn’t matter if it’s wet, because a quick flick of the wrist to get the water off will clear that problem, and they create sparks in excess of 5000 degrees F! Any kind of fine tinder will usually catch the sparks and leap into flame, and they’re easy to carry and next to impossible to break. It’s a great choice for an “emergency” fire starter.
So, here’s the question…if you have an option that is an ideal fire starting tool under the most adverse conditions, why would you relegate it to your tertiary choice? Doesn’t it make more sense to use it as your primary choice? It’s really not any less convenient than that Bic lighter is, even under the most ideal conditions you can imagine, and under anything less than the ideal, it’s far superior.
Matches have long been the choice of outdoorsmen, since they became reliable in the post-Civil War era, but the ferro rod beats them hands down too. The heat is hotter, they’re harder to break, and they don’t have to be protected in a waterproof matchsafe!
Get rid of the Bic lighter, get rid of the matches, and just carry a damned ferro rod already!
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Full disclosure: I don’t carry a ferro rod in my personal gear. I carry a traditional flint-and-steel kit. I’ve used my F&S to build fires under the worst conditions the mountains have been able to throw at me, including torrential summer thunderstorms, and wintertime blizzards, with 70mph winds. I trust my F&S kit, and my abilities with it. I don’t even bother carrying a backup fire starting method anymore.
I DO carry a ferro rod in my SAR pack. It is my “backup” there, only because my primary means of starting a fire, when providing care for a patient in need of a fire for medical reasons, is a road flare. Any reasonable pile of kindling and firewood, no matter how wet, will burn reliably, when ignited with a highway flare, in my experience.
I also keep a F&S in my SAR pack, but only because we’re doctrinally mandated to keep three fire starting systems in our gear.
Western Mountain Fieldcraft 