Small fire and melt in. Fire production methods without matches and lighters - choose an option for yourself

You will need:

The most ancient and complex way is to produce fire by friction. There are various techniques for this process, but the most important thing is to choose the right type of wood for the plank and the core. Poplar, juniper, aspen, cedar, willow or walnut will do for this role. Of course, for effective ignition we need dry wood.
  The rod is placed in a small hollowed recess in the plank and clamped between the palms. You need to quickly twist the stick around the axis, creating friction. In this case, the tree will begin to smolder, a spark will appear, and the coals obtained are already used for further kindling of the fire.

Hand drill

Another primitive and quite difficult method.

In addition to sticks and planks, we need tinder. Gather dry leaves, grass, bark in a pile, build something like a bird's nest - this material will help us get fire from the coals.

In the plank, you need to cut a v-shaped hole, and next to make a small depression, under which to put pieces of bark.

Mark a rod about 60 cm long into the recess and begin to rotate it between the hands until signs of decay appear in the hole. Carefully inflate the fire to red coals, then transfer them to the tinder and, adding dry twigs, cones, try to ignite a full flame.

Let's say right away: the two options described above are a long, laborious, and require a lot of patience process. But it may happen that you don’t have anything else at hand. In this case, the forest will also help out this knowledge.

The method is similar to the previous one, but much more efficient and simpler. If you do everything right, then you will very quickly reach the required speed and pressure, which allows you to get the coveted embers and make a fire even in a wet forest.

Your task is to make a beam drill. To do this, prepare the plank, core, deck and bow. Now, first things first.

  Look for a deck or stone that we will need to pressure the rod. The tree should be harder than the stem.

For a bow, use a strong and resilient vine about the length of your arm. As a bowstring, rope, lace, a leather belt and other durable material that is resistant to tearing are suitable. Pull the bowstring on the rod.

Next, prepare the ignition board. Make a funnel and place a tinder under it. Then pull the string over the rod so that you end up with a loop. Place one end of it in the cavity on the board, and press the other with the block.

Now, in fact, the process itself, which will help us make fire. Move the bow forward and backward, as if sawing. Rotate the rod quickly until coals appear. Throw the coals on the tinder and carefully blow.

Going on the next trip, take a flint with you. If you don’t have such a device, do it yourself - quartzite and a knife with a steel blade will be enough!
  Also look for charcoal. Its main purpose is smoldering during a spark. But for this purpose any fabric, even moss, capable of smoldering without fire for a long time will do.

How to use a flint? Grasp the flint between the fingers so that its tip protrudes 6-8 cm forward. Hold ignition material between flint and thumb. Now take a knife and hit it a stone a couple of times. As a result of your actions, sparks will get on the coal or fabric and begin to smolder. Put them in a tinder nest and blow them. Then you can calmly make your fire.

Jar and Chocolate

Everything is extremely simple here. Swipe a bar of chocolate along the bottom of an aluminum can of drinks or canned goods. Then wipe the bottom with a regular cloth. Chocolate is an ideal tool for polishing and your jar will shine like a glass. Instead of chocolate, you can use toothpaste.

After you completely polish the bottom of the can, the rays of the sun will be able to reflect off it and create a focal point.
  This principle resembles the process of a telescope. Again, turn the surface towards the sun and direct them to the tinder made, located 3-4 cm from the focal point. Soon a flame will appear.

True, the minus is that an aluminum can is not always at hand. And we certainly eat a bar of chocolate before the fire!

This is the easiest way to get fire, but it will only work in sunny weather. Many of you must have melted the soldiers or set fire to the newspaper with it in childhood. Now, using a lens, magnifier, magnifying glass, glasses or binoculars, we will try to make a bonfire.

To speed up the process, moisten the surface with water.

Position the lens at the angle of sunlight, focusing the beam at one point. Put a tinder in this place and wait just a few minutes.

As we already understood, it is easiest to make fire with a lens. Unfortunately, it may not always be at hand, but a condom may well lie in the inner pocket of a real man. The same method can be taught to a child by using an inflatable balloon.

Fill the condom with water so that it fits easily in your hand and resembles a sphere in shape. Do not forget to tie the product tightly.

  Then squeeze the ball so that a direct beam of light passes through it. As a result, you get two lenses of small diameter. The focal length will be less than that of real lenses, so you need to keep them at a distance of 5-7 cm from dry objects that should catch fire.

Using ice

Water and fire - it would seem two completely opposite elements. However, a fire can be made from a piece of ice. Especially this method is relevant in winter weather.

It is advisable to use clean water so that the ice is transparent. If it contains specks, then you simply will not succeed.

An icicle or a piece of pure ice from a river will do. You can also draw water from a reservoir or pre-melt snow in your hands.

  Allow the liquid to freeze in some container. The size of the obtained ice should be about 5 cm. Then cut the lens in the center of the ice, polish it and shape it. Point the lens at sunlight and wait for the result.

1. For the first method, you will need a piece of foil - from chewing gum, chocolate, packs of cigarettes, etc. Cut a short and narrow strip of about 1-1.5 cm from the foil. Then give it a crescent shape so that the wide ends are only at the edges of the tape.

   The lower the battery power, the narrower the strip!

   In the battery near the pressing place, scrape off a little surface to the adhesive layer and fix one end of the foil on it. Place your hands over the tinder, and lean the other edge of the strip against the contact - the paper will flash instantly.

2. Another way would require a piece of animal hair. Form a strip of 1 cm wide and about 15 cm long from it and rub it with the battery on the side where the contacts are. Ignition will occur quickly, so first prepare tinder and firewood for the fire.

Spoon and toilet paper

Of course, these items can be found in any tourist, namely: a spoon, a pot and toilet paper.

Roll the paper into a tight tourniquet 3-4 mm thick and roll it between your palms to make it look like a cigarette. Then coat one end with soot from the pot.

Now go to the spoon. It needs to be slightly bent inward to the handle, and the bed slightly flattened so that your reflection inside does not have strong distortions.

Catch a beam of light with a spoon and place paper directly above it on the soot side. After a few seconds, the tourniquet will begin to smoke. Wait until intense smoldering begins and proceed with the bonfire.

The essence of making fire by friction is that when rubbing against each other, any objects (including wooden ones) are heated. In this case, wood acts as a rubbing surface. Heated by friction, it is able to reach a temperature sufficient to form a smoldering tinder, which often acts as the dust of the same wood.

Theoretically, this method is simple, practically requires a huge effort to implement and certain skills.

Several methods are known to produce fire by friction, but not all of them are applicable in real conditions, taking into account the peculiarities of the temperate latitudes of the northern hemisphere (the corresponding wood and its humidity).

The main options for producing fire by friction

Most often, to get fire by friction, use the following methods:

1. Fiery plow. Here a smoldering tinder is formed as a result of friction of a peg on a groove cut in a wooden plank.
2. Hand drill. Embers in this case appear as a result of drilling a wooden plank prepared in a special way.
3. Fiery bow. Here everything is the same as in the case with a hand drill, only the drill is driven by reciprocating movements of the beam.
4. Fiery bamboo. In this case, the pre-prepared kindling begins to smolder, sandwiched in the half of the bamboo trunk, which “saws” the other half.

All methods of lighting fire by friction have their own specifics and are quite difficult to implement. To confidently make a fire with their help, preliminary training is required.

Fire plow

This is one of the most difficult ways to make fire by friction. However, for lack of a rope, which is needed, for example, for a fiery bow, it becomes acceptable for making fire even in the steppes and forest-steppes.

The essence of the method is that when rubbing with a sharp stick on the gutter in a log, the walls of the log are heated, hot dust is scraped from them, which then will swell.

Dry (but not rotten) soft hardwood is suitable for a fire plow. Coniferous wood should not be used for friction purposes because of the presence of tar, which can inhibit the appearance of a smoldering tinder. However, if there are no deciduous trees nearby, you can try, for example, using pine sticks.

Some suggest that bark can be used as the basis for a friction fire. But this is not true: fire cannot be obtained in this way. If you really use the bark, then birch bark and then only as a kindling.

In order to make fire a fire plow, you need to follow the following algorithm:

1. A plank is made, or a level ground up to half a meter long is made on a horizontally lying trunk.
2. A shallow groove is cut in the plank for almost the entire length of the plank.
3. A peg up to 30 cm long is planed from the same tree, which is sharpened on one side.
4. The sharp side of the peg is lowered into the groove.
5. The peg is pressed into the bottom of the groove and is thus driven along its entire length in one direction and the other.
6. A kindling is placed on the smoldering coals formed as a result of friction, or the coals are neatly poured into a kindled coil, after which they are inflated until a fire appears.

Our distant ancestors fired fire in this way - by friction of one piece of dry wood against another using the fire plow technology.

If you make the peg more authentic (a little more than two meters), the fire plow can be used together, which greatly simplifies the work of the person who produces the fire. In this case, a person sitting by a piece of wood guides and presses the peg to the groove, while a standing person presses and moves it in one and the other direction. The video shows how this is organized:

Hand drill

This method of producing fire by friction is mainly used in the tropical and equatorial zones, where there is wood suitable for this.

Algorithm of actions:

1. A piece of a small branch is cleared of bark and split lengthwise into two parts.
2. In one half, a “V” -shaped slot is cut out on the side, in the narrowest part of which a recess is made for the future drill from the outside of the branch.
3. A drill is made from the same wood, which is a non-thick stick sharpened on one side with a length of at least half a meter (it will not be so convenient to work with a shorter one).
4. A stick with a slit cut out is laid flat on the ground on a pre-prepared kindling.
5. The drill with its sharp side abuts against a recess in a stick lying on the ground.
6. The upper part of the drill is clamped between the palms and rotates with pressure in a movement reminiscent of rubbing the palms during frost. When the palms slide down without tearing the drill from the lower stick, they must be returned to their original place and continue rotation.
7. The smoldering coals formed as a result of friction inside the gap are carefully dumped on the kindling and inflated until a fire appears.

This method of producing fire by friction was used by ancient people living in hot countries. In modern conditions, it can be simplified through the use of potassium permanganate, which ignites faster than a rod.

If potassium permanganate is found in a tourist’s medicine cabinet, there will be no problem with a bonfire. In a hole made in a log, you need to pour a little of this powder, press it with the end of a small stick, preliminarily overlaid with a tinder, and make several rotational movements. Friction will cause a flash and tinder to ignite.

An example of such a fire in the taiga in winter is shown in the video:

It’s a little difficult to make fire in our latitudes with a hand drill: it will take a lot of time, effort, and wounds can form on the hands that the infection can get into. Therefore, this method is not widespread, in contrast to the following method.

The video shows how to make a fire in this way in Kenya:

Fiery bow and its variation

This method of lighting fire by friction gained fame under the name Native American violin, although it has long been used not only in America, but also on other continents.

In fact, this method is the same hand drill, only in this case the rotation is carried out not with the palms, but with a bowstring, which provides greater speed and, correspondingly, higher temperatures. Therefore, sometimes it is called an onion drill.

Externally, the device for making such a fire is similar to a bow whose bowstring is wrapped around a stick.

The wood used is the same as for the fire plow, that is, dry wood of soft hardwood, such as alder or aspen. Trees lying on the ground are not suitable for these purposes, as they are likely to be wet or rotten and rotten.

Also, for this method, you need a rope, as often use laces removed from one boot. The main requirement for a rope is that it must be strong (tourist ropes are very good for this).

To receive fire with your own hands using a fiery bow, the following is done:

1. Susha is cut down.
2. A plank is made, or, as in the previous case, the branch is split half along the fibers.
3. By analogy with the previous method, a “V” -shaped gap and a recess is made in its narrowed end.
4. From a separate piece of wood, a drill of about 30 cm in length is pointed, pointed on both sides.

1. A bow is made. To do this, you can take a curved sufficiently rigid stick up to a meter long and tie a rope to both sides of it. An elastic branch is also suitable for these purposes, but with it it will be harder to achieve the tension of the rope while the bow is moving forward, which can lead to the rope slipping through the drill.
2. The second part of the split stick is taken and in the center of it on the inner side a small hole is picked out. The top of the drill will be inserted into this hole.
3. The bowstring is wrapped around the drill once, the drill is inserted at one end into the lower plank and pressed against the second plank from above. Both pointed ends of the drill should fall into the corresponding holes. It turns out an onion drill.
4. A man stands on his right knee, and with his left foot presses the lower plate to exclude its displacement. The bow is in the right hand, and with his left hand he holds the top plate, which presses the drill.
5. The bow is driven in reciprocating motion, as when drilling, this causes the drill to rotate in the support. As the “V” -shaped gap is filled with tinder, the speed of the bow must be gradually increased, bringing the temperature at the point of contact between the drill and the supporting plate to a maximum.
6. The smoldering tinder formed as a result of overcoming the frictional force is removed along with the kindling and swells until a fire appears. The tinder should be in the form of small black needles: only in this case can we hope for a good result.

I once observed this picture: a young man attached a wooden drill to a drill and drilled a wooden board in the center - there was a lot of smoke, but it did not work to light a fire. A similar situation can be seen in some books illustrating images with a similar pattern. It is easy to guess that such a method is doomed to failure, because there is nowhere to accumulate the tinder, which, among other things, just scatters to the sides.

This method of producing fire, as described above, is based on the physical phenomenon of an increase in internal energy due to the work to overcome the friction forces.
  In our latitudes, it is most preferable, but still remains one of the most difficult and energy-consuming (mainly due to the high complexity of onion production) and requires preliminary development.

There is also a "relative" of the fire onion, called the pump (pump) drill, but this device is quite difficult to manufacture in terms of survival and therefore will not be considered in this article. The video shows this option:

Fire bamboo

For obvious reasons, this method of producing fire with your own hands is used only in regions where bamboo grows. Only dried stems of this plant are suitable for him.

Fire is produced as follows:

1. A dry meter-long bamboo trunk splits into two parts.
2. One part (hereinafter referred to as the first part) is shortened to half a meter and a small through hole is made in it in the middle with a knife.
3. From the outside, a transverse groove is made directly through the hole.
4. A wide sliver of about 40 cm long is cut from the second piece (hereinafter referred to as the second part) of the split bamboo trunk and is cracked in the middle.
5. The side of the second part of the trunk is made even and its edge is sharpened with a knife - it turns out a kind of bamboo blade.
6. Chips in the form of thin twisted ribbons are scraped off with a knife from the second part of the barrel. To do this, the knife blade is held at a right angle to the barrel and is located across it.
7. The chips are rolled into a tight ball, divided into two equal parts and laid inside the first part of the barrel directly above the hole (the hole is between them), after which they are pressed from above with a broken chip.
8. The second part of the trunk abuts against the abdomen with one end, and into the ground with the other. The weight of the body presses it to the ground so as to prevent displacement during operation.
9. The first part of the barrel with a kindling and sliver is taken with both hands at the opposite ends and is leaned against the flat side surface (“blade”) of the second part with a groove.
10. The reciprocating movement due to friction provides heating sufficient for the formation of decay in the kindling pressed by woodchips.
11. The smoldering kindling is transferred to dry grass and swells until a fire appears.

I have also observed another implementation of this method of lighting fire by friction. In it, half of the trunk of the bamboo with kindling was lying on the ground (with kindling down), and the second half was sawn. But this method, as for me, is less universal, since it needs at least two people (one to hold the bottom, the second for sawing movements), the soil must be dry so as not to wet the kindling, and your hands can be damaged on those lying on ground stones or thorns.

Like other methods of producing fire by friction, this one requires prior training. Without such training, a person in an emergency risks spending a lot of time and effort, while remaining without fire.

As for me, in our latitudes the most acceptable option for making fire under conditions of survival was and remains the method of fire onions. Although it requires a strong rope, it is he who, in comparison with other methods, allows to spend less effort, which in an emergency always has where to apply.

Interesting video: a power drill at work

Polynesian fire plow:

The ability to make fire without matches or lighters is invaluable, especially when hit by extreme conditions of survival. Various circumstances can make the matches damp, and the lighter will be lost or gas will run out in it. In this case, it is able to save fire from friction from cold and hunger, despite the fact that this process is very laborious and lengthy. They knew how to make fire without matches (by friction) in ancient times, since there were no other ways to warm oneself, to protect oneself from animals at night, and to cook the food they got.

Firing Fire

There are two main ways how to light a fire by friction:

• A method using a hand drill.

For this you will need: a base and a core of dry wood, tinder, material for ignition. Basically, you need to make a groove where friction with a wooden rod will be produced. Another groove is diverted from this groove, coals and other friction products will come out of it. After that, a rod made of durable wood is installed in the groove. The friction of the rod against the base is made by rotating it around its axis with its hands, resulting in coals. After this, the coals need to be moved to a pre-prepared tinder, and when the flame is taken, move to another material for lighting a fire (logs, branches, etc.).

• Using a beam drill.

The principle of operation is similar to the previous ignition, with the only difference being that a latch is attached to the top of the rod, allowing it to rotate more quickly without injuring the hands, the danger of which occurs when using a hand drill. This is a more efficient way.

Friction Fire: Process Technology

Before making a fire, you need to prepare a tinder, collect firewood, prepare a nest for coal, make an onion with a drill and prepare a wooden base.

Dry fiber material is used as tinder: moss, villi from clothes, bird feathers and down, wooden thin shavings. For firewood, you need to pick up thin dry branches that can be found in the dry, lower tier of trees. The branches lying on the ground, most likely damp and moist, it will be difficult for them to flare up. Green wood should be avoided; it burns poorly. The tinder bundle should be wrapped with more dense material, for example, leaves or dry grass. In this case, you must leave a recess for coal and gaps for air ventilation.

The next step is the manufacture of onions, for which you need to choose a strong, elastic wood. After the suitable material is found, onions 30-60 cm long are made. This should be a thin, light rod, not too curved and at the same time stiff enough to not bend during rotation. For the manufacture of a bowstring, a cord, rope, twine is used, which is attached to the bow so that it is slightly sagging.

For the foundation you need to prepare a dry wooden board. For its manufacture, you need to choose light and soft wood. Its length should be 30-32 cm, width 5-8 cm, thickness 2.5 cm. Next, a drill is made with a minimum length of 20 cm, the diameter of which should be 2-4 cm. The lower end of the drill must be rounded and the upper sharpened with a knife .

For the spindle, you need to make the upper support of stone or wood. The stone should fit comfortably in the hand, not be too small. It should have a notch and smooth edges. A support block can be made of wood using hardwood by drilling a hole approximately to the middle of the block with a knife.

The support should be such that the spindle rotates freely around its axis, while maintaining a stable position of the narrow end. To make the upper end less frayed, you can lubricate the hole in the block with resin.

Fire

Based on the need to make a mark where the wooden drill will spin. Then drill a recess in this place with a diameter equal to the diameter of the spindle and a depth of about 5 mm. A hole for tinder is cut under it.

After that, you need to burn a hole:

1. A wooden base is laid on a flat plot of land.
2. With your left foot you need to stand on the base at a distance of 2-3 cm from the funnel. The second leg is bent at the knee behind.
3. Hold the spindle with your left hand, hold the bow in your right hand.
4. The bow string must be twisted with a loop at the upper, pointed end of the rod so that it does not create too much tension. If it is difficult to tighten, you need to loosen the bowstring.
5. The rounded spindle is inserted into the hole on the base with a rounded end; the support block adheres to it above it.
6. You need to take one end of the bow, and begin to rotate the spindle around its axis, pressing its lower end to the base.
7. If everything is done correctly, a black wood corner will form around the drill and smoke will appear.

Then you need to make a chimney: from the edge of the newly formed burnt funnel, you need to cut a V-shaped hole, not reaching the middle of the funnel. When the spindle rotates, coals are formed that will fall out through this hole. At the bottom of it you need to put a flat base for collecting coals, a flat sliver is suitable for this.

After that, they start laying out firewood as follows: they are laid at a right angle with gaps between the rods for air circulation in the tinder - kindling - fuel order. In this case, the kindling is not placed on the surface of the earth, but on a litter of leaves or dry branches. You should also leave a hole for laying the coals inside.

Now again you need to twist the drill on the base to get charcoals, gradually increasing the speed of rotation. Coals through the hole will fall on the tinder, which will soon smoke. An indicator that they are formed will be the darkening, redness or lightening of the tinder. Then you need to carefully remove the board, support smoldering embers with air (swing or gentle blow), gradually surrounding them with tinder. When the first flames appear, the burning tinder must be placed in the hole of the prepared kindling, fan the fire.

The main mistake in the method of producing fire by friction with onions is that inexperienced tourists put the kindling material in the immediate vicinity of the friction place, hoping that it will catch fire on its own. They do not take into account that in this case only smoke will appear, and for the appearance of fire, it is necessary to place the coals in the kindling material, inflating it.

Firing Fire: Other Ways

  Fire with stones

In addition to using a hand or beam drill, there are several more methods of producing fire by the friction method:

1. You will need a regular nail and a die, which you need to drive it into. This should be done for several minutes, while turning the nail around its axis. It will heat up so much that it can set fire to tinder.
2. From the pine need to make a small base with a split. The tinder is placed there so that under the plank there is little space. Next, you need to find a rope, it is better if it is made of natural fiber. It is necessary to take it at both ends and begin to “saw” the wooden plank from below with quick movements. When smoke appears, it needs to be inflated, having received fire.
3. The easiest way: a piece of cotton wool is placed between two dry wooden planks, and they begin to rub against each other. After a few minutes, the cotton wool will smoke.

The ability to make fire is perhaps the most useful skill in terms of survival. Fire is a source of heat and light, on fire you can cook food, boil water, making it suitable for drinking. Therefore, the survivors pay so much attention to all kinds of fire-fighting devices. The ability to make a fire without matches and a lighter can help out in difficult times, for example, when matches are wet or lost.

The most important thing in making a fire is a good tinder. Many of the techniques described below will be simply useless if you do not have a good tinder, because the fire should ignite from a tiny spark. A good tinder must always be dry. Dry grass, leaves, shavings, bark, and also fungus tinder are usually used as tinder. Of course, the tinder can be prepared in advance by taking, for example, a piece of burnt cotton cloth or cotton balls soaked in petroleum jelly. Finally, you can buy a special synthetic tinder in a tourist store.

Here are some of the most popular ways to make a bonfire without matches and lighters:

Flint and Magnesium

Flint is a metal rod made of ferrocerium - an alloy of iron and mischmetal, which carves sparks from an impact on a metal. When a metal chair hits a metal rod - “flint” - small particles of metal are cut off, which creates high temperature and the formation of a spark. By carefully inflating the smoldering tinder, you thus ensure the flow of oxygen and, as a result, the ignition of the tinder. Some flint can come with a magnesium bar. In this case, carefully put some small particles of magnesium on your tinder before putting the chair in motion, then it will flare up faster.

Friction

Friction is perhaps the most ancient way of making fire, invented by our distant ancestors. This technique is based on creating heat by rubbing two pieces of wood against each other. There are many variations of this method, but the simplest is the bow drill method.

An onion spindle consists of a wooden board, a spindle, a support block and, in fact, a bow. It is desirable that all the elements were from dry wood of soft species, especially the board, the tree for it should be as soft as possible. Cut a round recess in the board to the size of your spindle. Then make a cut from the edge of the board to the notch for the spindle.

From a curved branch, make a bow by tying a piece of rope, string, or even a string to both ends of the bow. Scroll the spindle around the bowstring so that it spins around the spindle. Put the board on the ground, the notch should be on top of a small pile of tinder. Put your foot on one side of the board, install the spindle in a circular recess. At the top of the spindle, install the support block and lock.

Now move the bow back and forth opposite the slot in the board. Due to friction, smoke begins to appear - continue to rotate the spindle until you see that ash has appeared and is smoking in the recess. Take a tinder with ash and gently inflate until a flame appears.

Magnifying glass

There are several different ways to increase the sun's rays. The use of a magnifying glass is the most common, but far from the only method. Sunlight can be increased through any transparent liquid, for example water in any bent vessel, the sphere of which will work like a lens. A clear plastic bag is also suitable. The main secret is to increase the sunbeam through glass or water and concentrate it at one point in your tinder. For this, the water must be transparent, I have clear weather. It is best to choose the afternoon when the sun is brightest.

Flint and steel

A spark can be carved by striking with a mild steel rod - for example, with the help of a pocket knife, on a hard stone, best of all flint. To do this, you need to keep flint in one hand with a flammable tinder, for example, from burnt fabric. The flint's impact surface should have a sharp edge, so you may need to split your flint or quartz in advance to get a sharp edge. With your other hand, strike the edge of the flint on the steel surface of the knife and, if you're lucky, the spark that hits the tinder will ignite it.

There are many ways to make fire without matches and lighters. Some of these methods are very time-consuming and difficult to implement, but there are also those with which to light a fire will be a little more difficult than using the same box of matches.

In particular, in addition to matches, there are other special tools for. So, for example, to light a fire without matches and lighters can be done using a flint or a fire piston. However, if you have these tools at hand, you can’t talk about an emergency, since it’s no harder to light a fire than matches. Therefore, further we will consider non-standard methods when even these tools were not available.

Making fire with a lens is the easiest and fastest alternative to matches and a lighter.

These methods include lighting a fire without matches:

• Armchair and flint;
• Empty silicon lighter without gas;
• A lens;
• Concave mirror;
• The friction of wood on wood;
• Friction tinder fungus on wood;
• Friction wire on wood;
• With a nail and a hammer;
• Skating cotton;
• Electricity
• Using chemicals;
• A shot from a gun.

Some of these methods of making fire were used thousands of years ago when ancient people did not yet have special equipment. Let's look at all of these methods of fire production in more detail.

Kind of fire armchair and flint

In this method, the tinder is ignited by a spark cut out by sharp flint from high-carbon steel (armchairs). So when a sharp edge of a flint or other durable stone collides with a smooth steel surface, small particles are scraped off from the steel and ignited by impact they ignite in air, forming sparks.

Chair and flint can be found almost everywhere, even in the wild.

In the wild, finding a flint or other durable stone is usually not a problem. As a chair, many use cleaver, knives and other steel tools.

This method requires a first-class tinder that can ignite from the slightest spark. Pharmaceutical cotton wool, paper and many other options suitable for other methods will not work here, because a spark carved from steel is much colder than sparks carved, for example, from modern flint.

I know five options for making a first-class tinder, suitable for this method:

1. The first tinder is made of two polypore. A tinder fungus breaks from a birch, from which the tubular part is cut, and the "velvet" is left. There is a chaga (a species of tinder fungus growing on a birch) and its brown part is crushed into dust. "Velvet" is rubbed with dust from the chaga - the tinder is ready. Such a tinder is quickly prepared, but it does not catch a spark right away.
2. The second tinder is made from the tinder by digestion. To do this, “velvet” is cut from the tinder funnel and put into the ash solution (1 part ash from the fire, 2 parts water). The tinder in the ash is cooked for 2 hours, after which it is removed and beaten with a smooth stick to a rag state. After this, the tinder dries well and kneads. To kindle such a tinder, part of it is torn off and a spark is cut out on the fibrous surface from the side of the break. This option can be used in cases where it is necessary to save other means of ignition: once you spend one match to prepare a tinder on a fire, you can save a full box in the future.
3. The third tinder is made of birch. For this, there is a birch lying on the ground: it is precisely such trunks that rot faster with the formation of the so-called rotten rot (rotten wood). The rotten rot is removed and, if necessary, dried in the sun. Such rotten wood, though not easy, but catches a spark and begins to smolder. The method is convenient in that for the preparation of this tinder, almost no time and effort is required, as well as a preliminary campfire.
4. A fourth tinder can be obtained by burning oxygen without access to cotton fabric. This is the so-called woman. The fabric is folded and pushed, for example, in a tin can. The can is closed and placed in a fire. When smoke and flames cease to appear from the cracks of the can, the can, along with the tinder, is removed from the fire and left to cool in the air. The resulting tinder very easily catches a spark, but to prepare it, you need fabric and a bonfire diluted in another way, as in the case of digesting tinder.
5. The fifth tinder is the recently extinguished bonfire coals. Only those on which there is still a layer of white ash are suitable. Having caught a spark, such a coal begins to smolder, a second coal is brought up to it and a fire is inflated, from which the kindling is ignited. Such coals easily catch a spark, but require preliminary preparation. Nevertheless, like the other options, this one is quite suitable for saving other means of ignition.

Any of these tinder should be protected from moisture. It would be ideal to put it in a sealed container, for example, a plastic jar of vitamins or a PET bottle with a wide neck for easy extraction.

The tinder fungus, or fungus mushroom, in fact, got its name for the fact that it has long been made of good tinder.

Now that there is a suitable tinder available, you can begin to breed fire with flint and an armchair. For this:

1. A blow of flint against flint makes a sharp chip on one of the stones. A sharp line will allow you to carve more sparks and increase the chances of an early success.
2. Chipped flint with a tinder is clamped in one hand, the chair is taken in the other. The tinder is placed on a chip from above (sparks will fly here) and is pressed with the thumb.
3. With the blow of a chair, sparks are cut out to flint, which should set fire to tinder. If a burnt log is kindled, then the chair rests on it, and sparks are carved by flint from top to bottom.
4. The tinder that caught the spark is put into the kindling and swells until a fire appears.

In the sensational 2016 Survivor film, based on real events, the main character played by Leonardo DiCaprio puts a tinder under flint instead of using the correct version with a tinder on top of flint. In this way, of course, you can try to set fire to tinder, but why complicate your life, which is already not sugar?

This method is quite whimsical, as it requires a specially prepared tinder, which should be protected from moisture. However, if such a tinder is still available, it will be easy and quick to light a fire with this method: not in vain in the old days, when matches and lighters did not appear yet, it replaced other more complicated methods and became the main one for producing fire.

Firebreaking with a gas-free silicon lighter

This method is similar in principle to the method of lighting a fire with a modern flint: a spark ignites a prepared flammable powder, scraped to a tinder from a mischmetal, which is part of the lighter. Flammable powder sets fire to tinder.

It is clear that this method requires a silicon lighter.

If there is a tinder, described in the previous method, or cotton wool (usually located in a tourist medicine cabinet), or fluff from an old cattail growing along freshwater ponds, then there will be plenty of lighter sparks to ignite them. But we will consider two options when such a flammable tinder is not available.

In the first method, toilet paper will be taken as tinder. On trips, we use it both for its intended purpose and for wiping dishes when it is necessary to save water, and there is no suitable grass nearby. It is also good as a kindling, especially if you moisten it with oil (even hygienic lipstick can help) or other flammable liquid or wrap a piece of paraffin from a candle in it.

So, to start a fire in the first way, you need to do the following:

1. The lid is removed from the lighter.
2. Toilet paper folds several times and tears. All pieces are stacked in a torn part in one direction.
3. The resulting stack is pressed against the lighter in the place where sparks fly out when the wheel rotates. Torn loose parts should be directed towards sparks.
4. Sparks are carved by rolling a palm on the lighter wheel onto a stack of toilet paper. Carving of sparks is repeated until the smoldering of paper begins.
5. Paper inflates until a fire appears.

For this method, you need a good dry toilet paper (preferably soft and loose, and not as thick as whatman paper). I can say that not every toilet paper is equally well suited for burning in this way: paper that lays in the pocket of your trousers and is damp from it does not burn well.

Even without fuel, a silicon lighter produces enough sparks to ignite a dry tinder.

Many people recommend putting the kindling in a pocket for drying, but from my own experience I was convinced that the paper lying in my pants pocket does not dry, but gets wet. Most likely this is due to sweating and high humidity between the body and clothes.

The second method is less capricious and is able to ignite not only toilet paper, but also the usual one, for example, torn from a notebook. It is more universal: for example, I was able, without problems, to get smoldering of a tinder fungus (its tubular part) ripped from a tree. It is not hard to guess that in the wild, instead of paper, the same birch bark can be used (its upper thinnest part).

So, to implement the second method, you must follow the following instructions:

1. The lid is removed from the lighter.
2. The center of the paper sheet is loosened by grinding or by any other suitable method for these purposes and bent so that a funnel forms in the center of the sheet. If this is not done, fire can also be obtained, but you will need more powder scraped from the mischmetal lighter rod.
3. The lighter is initially positioned horizontally above the paper so that sparks cannot ignite the paper.
4. The lighter wheel scrolls slowly until the right amount of powder scraped from the lighter rod has been collected on the paper. When rotating the wheel, try to avoid sparks.
5. The powder is collected in the center of the paper, at the place where it is loosened.
6. A spark is extracted by turning the wheel to the powder from the lighter - the flash ignites the paper.

This method is good with an empty lighter. But, as my experience has shown, if the lighter was used until there was no gas left in it, it would not be of much use: already at the stage of scraping the mischmetal chips, the rod could fly out and get lost, depriving a person of the opportunity to finish the job.

On the other hand, even though such a lighter allows you to make fire even without gas, I would still dare to recommend carrying a piezo-lighter with you: it is more convenient to use, especially when you have to use it in the cold with frozen hands.

Attention!

In the cold, many cheap lighters work very poorly due to cooling and reduced gas pressure inside them. Therefore, it is recommended that you carry them in your inner pocket and remove them immediately before use. It is also useful to have at least two lighters and matches or a flint in case of breakdown of one of them.

If finances allow you to spend on something more “powerful”, then it is better to buy a turbo lighter: it will not go out in the wind either, and it is easier to light a fire with it, although the fuel in it also ends faster.

Fire breeding with a sun lens

This method is based on the properties of the lens to concentrate all the sun's rays that have passed through its surface at one point. It is here that the temperature will be sufficient to set fire to the tinder.

The lens in the campaign can be removed from glasses, a camera, binoculars and other devices, which it may be a part of. Sometimes they take a small magnifier on a camping trip to view the map. Magnifying glass is available on some tablet compass models.

If there are no ready-made options, the lens can be made from improvised means, for example, carved from ice, made from the bottoms found on the road, among other things, garbage of glass bottles (it is not recommended to carry glass containers on a camping trip, due to its fragility). A condom or a PET bottle filled with water also copes well with the role of a lens for lighting a fire.

Video: Building a fire with a condom

These and other methods of lighting fire using the sun were discussed in more detail in a separate article, so now we will focus on the option that can be used in a city or village, namely the creation of a lens from a light bulb.

To do this, you need an incandescent lamp, which can be found both at home or in the entrance, and among the garbage.

The larger the lamp, the better. The shape of the lamp should be round.

1. A solid object breaks the ceramic insulator. It is more convenient to do with a nail.
2. Through the hole formed, the inner part is gently knocked out.
3. All "entrails" are removed from the flask.
4. Pure water is poured into the flask - the lens is ready.

Such a lens, in comparison with many others made from improvised means, is a very effective means for lighting a fire.

The method of lighting fire from the lens and the sun is simple and effective, especially when there is a finished lens. I myself use it and recommend it to others as the main method for lighting a fire in sunny weather, which saves matches and fuel in lighters.

There is an opinion that this method is good only in the warm season, however, as practice has shown, they can make fire even in the winter season at sub-zero temperatures, but in fair weather. The main thing is that there is a sun.

This method has one drawback - it is impossible for them to light a fire in cloudy weather at night.

Kicking the fire with a concave mirror

This method is based on the same principle as the previous one, only in this case the sun's rays are not collected by the curved glass, but by the concave mirror, and the kindling is located between the mirror and the sun.

In a campaign, some kind of concave mirror can be obtained by removing the reflector from the flashlight or car headlight. It is also good to make a fire with a gas cylinder, or rather with a concave shiny bottom (such cylinders are taken on a camping trip for cooking on gas and multi-fuel burners).

In urban conditions, a concave mirror can be bought in a store where they sell all small things.

For example, for this purpose I used a mirror taken from an old microscope: despite its small size, it coped well with the fire from the sun.

An interesting and very unusual option is to kindle a fire with a tablespoon. Of course, in order to simplify the task of lighting a fire in the future, the scoop of this very spoon must be deformed to the shape of a concave mirror. However, even without deformation, such a spoon on a hot summer day can ignite a sensitive tinder, for example, burning.

Many times I met the recommendations for the manufacture of a concave mirror for these purposes from a beer can. It was proposed to polish the bottom of the can with a piece of chocolate. After Les Stroud (Canadian presenter of the Science of Survival television program) demonstrated this method in his video, I decided to try this method. But, as expected, nothing good came of this idea: the bottom of the can, instead of becoming a mirror, became dull. Rubbing the bottom of the can with campfire ash and toothpaste also did not add shine. A method that was really suitable for polishing turned out to be simple but tedious: it turned out that the bottom of the can can be polished with a piece of cloth.

Compared to the method of obtaining fire with a lens, this method is less convenient, because you have to keep the tinder canopy between the sun and the mirror, which is not always convenient. In addition, the tinder itself in most cases partially obscures the sun's rays falling on the mirror with its shadow, thereby reducing the effectiveness of the method. In general, this method has the same advantages and disadvantages as the method of making fire using a lens.

Breeding fire by friction of a tree on a tree

The principle of making fire in this way is based on the fact that during friction the tree heats up, and the dust formed as a result of friction begins to smolder. This smoldering dust is transferred to the kindling, igniting it.

These methods are very difficult to perform and time consuming. Without preliminary training, it will be difficult to start a fire in this way, especially in our latitudes. In addition, the method is sensitive to wood: not every tree heats up well with friction and, if you make a mistake with its choice, the chances of success are sharply reduced.

Nevertheless, I personally consider this method to be the basic one, that is, one that will allow to kindle fire without anything at all, when a person in the wild has no equipment at all, and besides the trees in the district there are no more stones and metal. Therefore, it makes sense to spend time and effort on its development, especially since fire on a campaign or survival conditions is one of the main things for a comfortable and safe stay in the wild.

Killing fire by rubbing tinder fungus on wood

The principle of this method is similar to the previous one, only in this case friction occurs between wood and tinder, namely chaga.

For reference: chaga is a variety of tinder fungus, also called birch mushroom. As the name implies, such a mushroom grows on birches. Chaga is used not only for making fire, but also for making tea, kvass, as well as for medical purposes.

To light a fire in this way, you must follow these steps:

1. In the trunk of a dry tree in its upper part with an ax, two faces are cut longitudinally, located at right angles to each other. The upper part of the cross-section of the trunk at the same time resembles a gable hut.
2. Chaga is cut into two parts.
3. One part of the chaga with a cut is pressed with two hands to the tip formed by the faces, and begin to move. These movements should be reciprocating in nature, directed along the trunk, and are committed before the onset of smoldering chaga.
4. The smoldering chaga is transferred to the kindling and inflated until a fire appears.

This method is somewhat similar to the method of a fire plow, requires a considerable expenditure of effort and time for its implementation. In addition, for this method, you need an ax or other tool that allows you to fell and process wood.

The minuses of this method can also include the chaga itself, which does not grow in all regions. In any case, I have never been able to find it in the south of Ukraine, including due to the small number of birches that grow in this region.

Nevertheless, in the birch grove of all the friction methods this is probably the most effective, since using birch for the same method of making fire using the “Indian violin” is not a good idea because of the hardness of birch wood.

Killing fire by friction wire on wood

In this method, the tinder ignites from a wire heated by friction against a tree.

A tourist usually has a wire in a repair kit: here it lies in case of equipment breakdown, which can be repaired with its help. In addition, the wire can be used instead of a rope for fastening elements to each other during the construction of a shelter or raft. From the wire you can make traps, in particular snares, and much more.

Some types of traps, such as snares and tops, may be illegal in some regions. Therefore, before catching certain representatives of the fauna, you should always ask what the local legislation says about this. So, in one region the use of specific gear may be allowed, while in another it is prohibited by law. It is clear that in conditions of survival no one will pay attention to these things, but for a peaceful tourist who wants to work out survival skills in the wild, they should still be taken into account in order to avoid a fine and damage to nature.

The wire for this method should not be thinner than 2 mm thick so as not to break prematurely as a result of heating.

In a campaign, the wire is generally very useful - dishes are hung on it over a bonfire, various devices are made from it, and it can also be used to make fire.

To light a fire in this way, do the following:

1. A piece of wire with a length of at least 80 cm is taken. It will be inconvenient to work with a smaller piece.
2. Two small sticks are screwed to the ends of the wire as handles.
3. A thick dry log is taken, at one end of which a small area is cut down on one side (about 20-30 cm).
4. The log is placed on a dry platform and, to prevent rolling from side to side, is fixed in any convenient way.
5. The wire is passed under the hewn section, and the process of "sawing" begins. They work in a similar way when they saw wood with a chain saw.
6. After the wire is slightly rubbed against the tree and a small groove is formed, a tinder is placed on the hewn area so that it touches the wire tightly. As a tinder, you can take an old dry stalk of cattail with down. If one is not available, another tinder is wound on a stick.
7. A wand with a tinder is pressed by a foot to a platform cut on a log.
8. The “saw” handles cross once so that the wire forms the number “8” with a torn upper ring.
9. Sawing begins, leading to the heating of the wire and the ignition of the tinder from it. The smoldering tinder moves to the kindling and swells until it ignites.

Like other methods of making fire by friction, this method is time-consuming, however, with a wire and a suitable tinder, it can be implemented as soon as possible and does not depend on the type of wood. And given the fact that many people take the wire with them on a hike (and sometimes it can also be found among the garbage that comes along the way), this method can be recommended not only in urban areas, but also in the wild.

Making a fire with a nail and a hammer

This method is based on the ability of a metal to heat up during a sharp deformation and, transferring heat to the tinder, ignites it.

For this method, you will need nails 10 or 20 cm long, a hammer, an anvil and, for example, paper as tinder. Smokers can try to kindle a cigarette in this way, from which you can also kindle kindling.

For obvious reasons, this method applies to the city: it is unlikely that someone would have the idea to put a hammer and an anvil in a backpack, but in the wild you can also dodge by finding a replacement. For example, instead of a nail, you can take another metal object, instead of a hammer and anvil - two stones. But in this case, getting fire will be much more difficult.

So, to set fire to this method, you must follow the following instructions:

1. The newspaper is folded into a tube and pressed against some object, so as not to unwind. To do this, you can put the same anvil on the newspaper or step on the newspaper with your foot.
2. A nail is placed on the anvil and a series of hammer blows are applied to it.
3. A heated nail leans against the newspaper before it begins to smolder.
4. If smoldering has not begun within a few seconds, the newspaper retracts and a few more blows are applied to the nail. If the newspaper began to smolder, it is inflated until a fire appears.

As I said earlier, this method is appropriate at home. To try my fate in the wild, trying to light a fire in this way, wasting precious time and energy, I would not recommend. However, if fire is still vital, and other methods cannot be realized for some reason, you can use it. As they say, in lack of fish ...

Making a fire by rolling cotton wool with and without chalk, ash

In this method, a smoldering ember arises inside a cotton roll, which is energetically rolled out by a board on a flat floor. Unprocessed cotton wool, which can be extracted, for example, from old mattresses and children's toys, is suitable for this method. The principle here is that when rolling the wool, its fibers rub against each other with increasing temperature. With due diligence, the cotton wool heats up so much that it lights up.

Instead of cotton wool, you can use fluff from cattail or fiber taken from the stalks of dried nettles.

Fire production occurs according to the following scheme:

1. A piece of cotton wool is spread out by a rectangular plate and rolled into a dense roller. To get a denser roller at the final stage, you can wet your hands with water (or spit) and roll the roller between your palms. Most often, chalk is used to fasten the roller (in an old village house it is applied to the walls, which makes them dirty if you lean against them) or ash (you can take it from the oven), crushing cotton on both sides before rolling.
2. Then the roller turns over and a little more cotton wool is also tightly wound on top of it in the opposite direction. This is necessary so that the inner roller does not unwind when it rolls on the floor with a board. This step can be skipped if chalk or ash is used.
3. The roller is placed on a flat floor or board, pressed on top of another board and rolled for even greater density. The denser the roller, the more likely it is to start a fire.
4. The platen pressed by the board begins to roll intensively on the floor in one direction and the other. Pressure on him should not be excessive. As a result of such skating, the inner layers of the wool warm up and begin to smolder.
5. Smoldering cotton wool is inflated, transferred to the kindling, which is ignited as a result of these actions.

This method is implemented only in the village or, for example, in a forest house where you can find smooth smooth boards. In addition, a special tinder is needed for this method, from which a roller can be rolled.

And yet, despite its shortcomings, this method has the right to exist and can be used in a situation where simpler methods will not be available. In particular, it can be implemented in an abandoned village or in an old hut in the forest.

Electric fire

Fire using electric current is obtained due to one of two mechanisms. In one case, because of the high resistance, the conductor heats up and ignites the tinder, in the other, the spark ignites the tinder when the contacts close.

For this method, you need a source of electric current. In a campaign, the current source for the battery is usually a battery taken from a flashlight, or the battery of a cell phone or navigator.

The battery ends are closed by a conductor, for example, foil (you can take it from chocolate - one of the recommended products for hiking in the cold season) or steel wool (it is used to wash pots from soot and food debris), which light up when electric current passes through them.

Recently, massively produced and sold metal washcloths for dishes that look like steel wool, but cannot be used to produce fire. An experiment conducted by me showed that such washcloths not only do not light up upon contact with the battery, but also do not give a spark. In addition, an attempt to close the battery contacts with a thread removed from such a washcloth failed: the battery did not even heat up (heating occurs when a short circuit occurs, for example, when the battery is closed with foil), which indicates the possible electrical insulating abilities of the material that these washcloths consist of. The experiment with foil that was carried out afterwards gave a positive result: this suggests that it was not a battery.

In detail about the methods of lighting a fire using a battery or accumulator, we have already said in

There is an opinion that steel wool can be set on fire with a lemon if you stick a series of steel and copper nails into it, interconnected in a certain sequence by wires. But the sequence of connecting nails inside one lemon that is offered in most videos does not make any sense, since it does not increase either the current strength or voltage. Yes, and, it seems to me, the current arising from the “fruit battery” (and this is 0.2-0.9 V according to various sources) will not be enough to realize this idea, except if there are a dozen or two of these lemons.

On the other hand, this method can still be implemented even in the wild of medium latitude, where lemons do not grow. So, instead of a dozen lemons, you can take almost any fruit or vegetables that are found in our area (for example, wild apples), since they also contain the electrolyte needed to generate electricity. The only thing left is to get copper and zinc elements, which will be used as electrodes.

There is, however, a fundamental point: if a person in the wild can get apples and especially lemons, then he does not have an urgent need for fire. These fruits are sung in the warm season and without a fire can serve as food. So the method of producing fire with their help should be attributed, rather, to a hypothetically possible, practically unhelpful.

Details on the main methods of lighting a fire using a battery or an accumulator can be found on the website in a separate article, here we will consider an option implemented in a settlement using a 220 V outlet.

Attention!

Getting fire using high voltage current can be life threatening: it may cause electric shock and fire caused by a short circuit.

Consider two ways to make fire using high voltage electric current.

For the first method:

1. A plug with a piece of wire is cut off from any electrical appliance (preferably damaged). You can take a piece of ordinary insulated wire without a plug, but then you have to make it yourself and use such a wire will not be so convenient.
2. The wire at the end is divided into two contacts and stripped of insulation. Thus, two forks are obtained on both sides.
3. A piece of foil or steel wool is taken as tinder. For the same purpose, a piece of paper is suitable on which a square is drawn and painted in the center with a simple pencil: the graphite layer on the paper has electrical conductivity and high resistance, so this paper can be effectively used to light a fire using this method.
4. The plug is plugged in.
5. Contact of bare wires with foil, steel wool or graphite-painted paper causes them to ignite.

For the second method:

1. A cigarette is taken. Instead of a cigarette, you can make a cigarette: in a small piece of toilet paper, hammer another tinder.
2. As in the previous method, a plug with bare wires is made.
3. The edge of the cigarette is slightly moistened with saliva.
4. The plug is plugged in.
5. Touching the bare wires to the wet part of the cigarette causes sparking, which, thanks to the tightening of the cigarette (as when lighting it), helps the tinder to light up.
6. The smoldering tinder is transferred to the kindling and inflated until a flame appears.

On the basis of the principle implemented in the second method, in my childhood I was able to light a fire from a dynamo (dynamos, by the way, are used by many on bicycles, including cycling).

Everything turned out by chance and became the reason for the subsequent replacement of the oilcloth covering the kitchen table, which I successfully burned. To do this, I poured a small pile of magnesium chips obtained by processing the magnesium plate with a file. He brought to her wires coming from the dynamo. At the moment of the dynamo’s rotation, the wires either came into contact with magnesium, sometimes disconnected from it, as a result of which small green sparks appeared, which actually caught my attention. As a result of these actions, at some point magnesium flared up and burned the oilcloth.

After this incident, repeated tests of the method were carried out, but already on a non-combustible foundation. In all experiments, sooner or later magnesium ignited.

Magnesium gives a blinding flash at the time of sunbathing. That is why its mixture is used to produce magnesium light bombs, used to blind the enemy.

For many who use a modern flint to ignite a fire, a magnesium bar in a backpack pocket is a common thing. It is from him that the shavings, which are ignited by a spark carved by a flint, are scraped onto the tinder. Magnesium can also be extracted from the remains of the aircraft (here it is used because of its lightness), for example, after an emergency or military operations, if something remains from the aircraft. Magnesium alloys containing more than 90% magnesium are used in the manufacture of motor vehicle housings, binoculars, and much more. In general, the main problem is rather not where to find it, but how to distinguish it from other metals.

Summarizing how to get fire using electric current, I can say that they are very easy to use, although they do not always guarantee success. Some of them are feasible in the wild with a battery or accumulator, while others require more civilized conditions.

In conditions of survival, you always need to decide which is more important - fire, or a charged battery.

To methods where it is necessary to use a high voltage current, it is necessary to resort only in the most extreme case for the reasons indicated above.

In general, these methods can be recommended when there are no matches left, the sun is hidden by clouds or is beyond the horizon, and other methods are too complicated to implement. Nevertheless, you always need to look and evaluate the situation: sometimes making fire is not as important as staying in touch, for example, with a rescue team, because often the same batteries are used to fire this method and use a mobile phone, the charge of which as you know, not unlimited. Staying in the wild without a navigator or phone is sometimes more dangerous than without fire.

Chemical fires

Some chemical reactions proceed violently with the release of such an amount of heat, which is enough to ignite the mixture. It is on this principle that this method is based.

Two methods are most applicable in the conditions of a campaign - grinding of potassium permanganate with sugar (or without it) between two wooden surfaces and wetting of potassium permanganate with anhydrous glycerin, which can be found in a medicine cabinet. In urban conditions, to obtain fire, you can also use cotton wool moistened with alcohol, which must be put on potassium permanganate moistened with concentrated sulfuric acid.

These and other chemical methods of producing fire without matches were discussed in detail in, therefore, I will not repeat here, but only draw a conclusion on them.

This method is simple and allows you to quickly get fire, but its big disadvantage is the high cost and rarity of some of the reagents involved in the reaction. Potassium permanganate, for example, is generally listed as a precursor, and getting it today is no easy task. In view of this, this method is rational only with a critical need for a fire and in the presence of appropriate reagents in humans.

Killing a fire with a shotgun

In this method, the tinder is ignited by gunpowder cartridge, flashing during a shot from a weapon.

Attention!

This method is very unsafe, so you need to use it only in extreme cases.

As is known, almost every modern hunter has a shotgun, at least in our country, therefore this method is primarily for amateurs to shoot in the wild, as well as for the military, who have the appropriate weapons at their disposal.

In order to set fire to a shot from a gun, you should adhere to the following instructions:

1. There is a small indentation in dry ground, although you can dig it out yourself.
2. A piece of dry cotton is cut off.
3. Gaskets, wads and all fractions are removed from the hunting cartridge. If the cartridge is live, a bullet is removed from it.
4. Half of the gunpowder in the cartridge spills out: firstly, there will be plenty of remaining gunpowder in the cartridge (excessive gunpowder can even harm), and secondly, the powdered powder can come in handy for lighting a fire in the future.
5. A piece of tissue is cut off and pushed into the cartridge on top of the powder so that fragments of this fabric do not extend beyond the cartridge case.
6. The cartridge is inserted into the weapon.
7. A shot is made into the previously found recess in the ground - the fabric flying out of the trunk lights up.

Due to the high cost of the cartridges, this method is advisable only when other simple ways of making fire are not available, but it is still necessary to organize a fire. For many tourists and residents of the city, it does not make sense because of the lack of weapons.

As you can see, the number of ways to get fire is large enough and you can always choose the one that turns out to be optimal in a given situation. According to my observations, the main popularity was won by methods of producing fire with a battery with foil, a fiery onion, a sun lens, as well as potassium permanganate and glycerin.

Nevertheless, ideally, you need to know and be able to use all possible methods for lighting a fire, because fire production in an emergency survival situation is one of the primary tasks. Another thing is that it is not always possible to practice in all known methods, since some methods require a lot of money (for example, the method with a gun), others are difficult to access (for example, the fire bamboo method, although with a great desire, you can get the bamboo trunk even in the area where it does not grow, for example, having bought it through the Internet), and still others are simply life-threatening (for example, some methods of producing fire by electricity).

In addition, in conditions of survival, you always need to be able to correctly prioritize. For example, if the weather is not too cold, instead of making a fire it’s more useful to build a shelter from the rain or just a convenient place to sleep, which will require less effort and time, but will allow you to have a good night's sleep without having to get up and throw firewood into the fire. If you are at a distance of 100-150 km from the village or the nearest road and you have a navigator or a phone with a charged battery, it is wiser not to stop for the night and especially not to waste battery power on a fire. You can sleep during the day, warming up in the sun, and the rest of the time confidently go out on the navigator to civilization. Finally, the energy required to make a bonfire by friction can be greater than the energy value of the food cooked on the bonfire. In this case, it may be appropriate to eat the prey raw.

Yes, and not always a modern person has time to develop these skills, because besides them there are others, for example, the construction of a temporary shelter, orientation on the terrain, overcoming various terrain under different weather conditions and much, much more that may be needed not only in survival conditions, but also for the usual campaign of the first category of difficulty.

That is why here I selected those methods that I recommend to master in the first place. These include:

1. Getting fire from sunlight and lenses, namely options with a finished lens, a condom and a bottle of water. These methods are easy to learn and can be used in clear weather as an alternative to matches. Personally, I almost always make fire using this method.
2. The chemical method, namely the cultivation of fire with potassium permanganate. This method is simple but expensive. However, in the absence of standard means of ignition in inclement weather, it can help a person save time and energy to get fire, for example, by friction.
3. Receiving fire by friction, namely with the help of a fiery bow (aka Native American violin). This method is the most "harsh", but allows a person to make fire in nature from improvised materials. You can also try to master the fire plow, so as not to be dependent on the reliability of the bowstring of the beam rotating the wooden drill.

These are the main ways to make fire, which must be mastered first. Other options can be studied after, if desired, the availability of time and the possibility of their implementation.

Interesting video: Making fire by rolling cotton wool