Even though I am usually no more than 12 miles from home when working and when I am it is still only 40-50 miles, I still wanted a basic fire kit as part of my Get-Home-Bag and EDC. It will sit in my GHB in the boot of the car and it is only a fallback in the event I might need to get a fire started in SHTF situation. It didn’t need to be able to supply multiple methods to start a fire so I though I would keep it as simple as possible.
By chance I found a seller on ebay selling some handy flip-top waterproof clear storage boxes which looked ideal so I bought the last 5 he had (I haven’t seen them anywhere else but they are bound to be out there somewhere). I’m sure the rest will come in useful in other areas of my GHB or prepping supplies.
Into the box I put a BIC lighter as well as a cheap Survival Magnesium Flint Stone Fire Starter Lighter Kit as a backup along with 6 petroleum jelly coated cotton balls in a sealed poly bag. The kit weighs just 100g all-in and sits neatly in a pocket in my GHB.
March 9, 2017 at 11:56 pm
Im a bit confused by the “magnesium” fire starter…wheres the magnesium? Am I missing something? I have a block of magnesium with a rod of “flint” set into one side – you shave some mag off one side, strike a spark on the other side, mag flares up, fire. Its over 30 years old and is still going. The mag block is heavily shaved away and the “flint” rod is worn away in the middle, but it still works as well as when I got it in the early 80s. Thats a magnesium fire starter as I understand them – so wheres the mag in these rod ones? Is it part of the rod that you strike that throws off burning bits of burning mag with the sparks ? Or what ? Im not being an arse, I would really like to know as these rods are a lot smaller and easier to carry all the time. Anyone ?
March 10, 2017 at 9:30 am
Good spot Sean, I hadn’t noticed the description of the firestarter included ‘magnesium’. It is actually a ferro (ferrocerium) rod which although it may have about 2% magnesium doesn’t really qualify. You are right that the magnesium block you have is a proper magnesium fire starter as it is designed to shave the magnesium off and then strike a spark to ignite the shavings. The ferro rod is only to create sparks to ignite a source of tinder.