What are those sources and ways?—you have come to the right place, as we, in this article, will explore six different ways to start a campfire. Each one of the suggested below requires minimum camping equipment and material support, so there would not be many hassles.
Without further ado, here are those six ways:
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Fire Plough
The first thing to do is to create a fireboard and a cut a groove in it. Hold the tip of the spindle and put it in the groove. Now, start rubbing against the tip up and down. Keep the tinder nest at the fire board’s end and blow embers into as you rub.
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Flint and Steel
It is an old method, but a really convenient one indeed. It is always recommended to campers to carry along a good steel and flint set on any camping trip. They are more useful than matches since the latter can easily get wet.
In the absence of a flint and steel set, there is, nevertheless, room for improvisation by using the steel blade on your pocket knife (please carry it along, it is useful) and quartzite. Char is also needed. If you do not have char, then birch or a piece of fungus would do.
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Traditional lens
For creating fire, you will need a lens to focus sunlight to a particular spot. Eyeglasses, binocular lenses or a magnifying glass will help. The addition of water can help in intensifying the beam.
Put your lens at an angle towards the sun to focus the light to a small area. Now, put the tinder nest in this area and wallah, there is fire.
The only disadvantage of using this method is that it is useless during night time.
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Condoms and Balloons
Yes, you read it right—we can create fire with the help of balloons and condoms, and the method is as simple as one can imagine.
Fill up a condom or balloon with water to transform them into fire producing lenses. Make sure you do not inflate the condom or balloon too much otherwise it will cause distortion in the focal point of sunlight. Squeeze until you get a shape of a circle of light.
This method will consume more than time than traditional lens method, but something is still better than nothing.
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Fire from ice
Fire and Ice share contrasting properties and do not typically go hand-in-hand, but they do get along under exceptional circumstances.
You can really create fire from ice, and all you are required to do is give the ice a lens shape and use it in the same way you would have used a conventional lens. This method is especially convenient in cold weather camping.
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Chocolate Bar and Coke Can
You will most probably be having these in your backpack, and if not, you can arrange them from nearby outlets.
Now, there are many YouTube videos on this, but let us give you a fair idea as to how you can make use of these two to create a campfire.
Polish the can’s bottom with the chocolate which will polish the surface. If you do not have a bar, toothpaste will do. Once polished, you will essentially have a parabolic mirror which will reflect sunlight onto the tinder nest.
