How to light a fire without matches: ways. How to make fire without matches? Making a fire in unusual ways

There are many ways to make fire without matches or a lighter. Some of these methods are very laborious and difficult to execute, but there are also those with which it will be a little more difficult to start a fire than using the same box of matches.

In particular, in addition to matches, there are other special means for. So, for example, you can kindle a fire without matches and a lighter using a flint or a fiery piston. However, if you have these means at hand, you cannot talk about an emergency, since it is no more difficult to start a fire with them than with matches. Therefore, further we will consider non-standard methods when even these tools were not available.

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

These methods include lighting a fire without matches:

• Kresal and flint;
• An empty silicon lighter without gas;
• Lens;
• Concave mirror;
• By rubbing wood against wood;
• Rubbing a tinder fungus on a tree;
• By rubbing the wire against wood;
• With a nail and hammer;
• Rolling cotton wool;
• Electricity;
• Using chemical reagents;
• Shot from a gun.

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

Making a fire with kresel and flint

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

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

In the wild, find flint or other durable stone usually not a problem. Many people use cleavers, knives and other steel tools as a chair.

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

I know of five options for preparing first-class tinder suitable for this method:

1. The first tinder is made from two tinder fungi. A tinder fungus is torn off from the birch, from which the tubular part is cut off, and the "velvet" is left. Chaga (a type of tinder fungus growing on a birch tree) is found and its brown part is crushed into dust. "Velvet" is rubbed with chaga dust - tinder is ready. Such tinder is quickly harvested, but it takes a long time to catch the spark.
2. The second tinder is made from tinder fungus by boiling. To do this, "velvet" is cut off from the tinder fungus and placed in an ash solution (1 part of ash from a fire, 2 parts of water). The tinder is boiled in ash for 2 hours, after which it is removed and beaten off with a smooth stick until it becomes a rag. After that, the tinder is well dried and kneaded. To kindle such a tinder, part of it is torn off and a spark is struck on the fibrous surface from the side of the fracture. This option can be used in cases where it is necessary to save other means of ignition: once spending one match on cooking tinder over a fire, you can save a full box in the future.
3. The third tinder is made from birch. For this, there is a birch lying on the ground: it is these trunks that rot faster with the formation of the so-called rotten wood (rotten wood). The rot is removed and, if necessary, dried in the sun. Such rotten wood, though not easy, catches the spark and begins to smolder. The method is convenient in that the preparation of this tinder almost does not require time and effort, as well as preliminary making a fire.
4. The fourth tinder can be obtained by burning cotton cloth without oxygen. This is the so-called scorch. The fabric is rolled up and pushed into, for example, tin can... The jar is closed and put into the fire. When smoke and flames stop appearing from the cracks in the jar, the jar together with the tinder is removed from the fire and remains to cool in the air. The resulting tinder very easily catches a spark, but for its preparation you need a cloth and a fire made in a different way, as in the case of boiling tinder fungus.
5. The fifth tinder is the recently-extinguished embers of a campfire. Only those that still have a layer of white ash are suitable. Having caught a spark, such a coal begins to smolder, a second coal is brought to it and a fire is blown up, from which a kindling is ignited. Such coals easily catch sparks, but require preliminary preparation. Nevertheless, like 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 an airtight container, for example, a plastic jar for vitamins or a PET bottle with a wide neck for easy removal.

Tinder fungus, or tinder fungus, in fact, got its name for the fact that good tinder has been made from it for a long time.

Now that you have the right tinder available, you can start lighting a fire with flint and krasal. For this:

1. By hitting flint on flint, a sharp chip is made on one of the stones. A sharp edge will allow you to strike more sparks and increase your chances of success sooner.
2. Chipped flint with tinder is clamped in one hand, the chair is taken in the other. The tinder is placed on top of the chip (this is where the sparks will fly) and pressed with the thumb.
3. By striking the flint on the flint, sparks are struck, which should ignite the tinder. If a burnt log is ignited, then the chisel rests against it, and sparks are struck by a blow of the flint from top to bottom.
4. The tinder that has caught the spark is put into a kindling and swells up until a fire appears.

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

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, then it will be easy and quick to kindle a fire with this method: it is not for nothing that in the old days, when matches and lighters had not yet appeared, it supplanted other more complex methods and became the main one for producing fire.

Lighting a fire with a silicon lighter without gas

This method is similar in principle to the method of kindling a fire with a modern flint: a spark ignites a prepared flammable powder scraped onto tinder from the mischmetal that is part of the lighter. The ignited powder ignites the tinder.

It is clear that this method requires a silicon lighter.

If there is tinder described in the previous method, or cotton wool (usually in a tourist first-aid kit), or fluff from an old cattail growing along freshwater reservoirs, then the spark of a lighter will be enough 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 hikes, we use it both for its intended purpose and for wiping dishes when it is necessary to save water, but 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 another flammable liquid or wrap a piece of paraffin from a candle in it.

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

1. The protective cover is removed from the lighter.
2. Toilet paper folds several times and tears. All pieces are stacked with the torn part in one direction.
3. The resulting stack is pressed against the lighter in the place from where sparks fly out when the wheel rotates. The torn loose parts should be directed towards the sparks.
4. Sparks are struck with a rolling blow of the palm on the wheel of the lighter onto the stack of toilet paper. Sparking is repeated until the paper begins to smolder.
5. The paper is inflated until a fire appears.

This method requires good dry toilet paper (preferably soft and loose, not thick like Whatman paper). I can say that not all toilet paper is equally well suited for setting fire in this way: paper that has lain in a pocket of your trousers and is damp from this ignites badly.

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

Many people recommend putting the kindling fire in a pocket to dry, but from my own experience I was convinced that the paper in the pocket of my pants does not dry, but is moistened. This is most likely due to perspiration and high humidity in the air between the body and clothing.

The second method is less capricious and is able to light not only toilet paper, but also ordinary paper, for example, torn from a notebook. It is more versatile: I, for example, without any problems managed to achieve the beginning of smoldering of the tinder fungus (its tubular part) plucked from the tree with this method. It's not hard to guess that in the wild, instead of paper, the same birch bark can be used (the upper thinnest part of it).

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 rubbing or any other method suitable for this purpose and bent so that a funnel forms in the center of the sheet. If this is not done, fire can also be obtained, but more powder is needed, scraped off the mischmetal of the lighter rod.
3. The lighter is initially positioned horizontally above the paper so that sparks cannot ignite the paper.
4. The lighter wheel is slowly scrolled until the required amount of powder scraped off the lighter rod is collected on the paper. When turning the wheel, you should try to avoid sparks.
5. The powder collects in the center of the paper where it is loosened.
6. A spark is extracted onto the powder from the lighter by rotating the wheel - the flash sets fire to the paper.

This method works well with an empty lighter. But, as my experience has shown, if the lighter was used until there was no gas left in it, there would be little sense from it: already at the stage of scraping off the mishmetal shavings, the rod can fly out and get lost, depriving a person of the opportunity to complete the matter.

On the other hand, although 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 a decrease in gas pressure inside them. Therefore, it is recommended to carry them in an inner pocket and remove them immediately before use. It is also helpful to have at least two lighters and matches or flint in case one of them breaks.

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

Lighting a fire with a lens from the sun

This method is based on the properties of a lens to concentrate all the sun's rays passing through its surface at one point. This is where the temperature will be sufficient to ignite the tinder.

When hiking, the lens can be removed from glasses, a camera, binoculars and other devices that may include it. Sometimes they take a small magnifying glass on a hike to examine the map. A magnifying glass is included on some tablet compasses.

If ready-made options was not found, the lens can be made from improvised means, for example, carved out of ice, made of glass bottles from the bottoms found along the way, among other rubbish (it is not recommended to carry glass containers on a hike, due to its fragility). A condom or PET bottle filled with water also works well as a lens for lighting a fire.

Video: Making a fire with a condom

These and other methods of making a fire using the sun were considered in more detail in a separate article, so now we will focus on an option that can be used in a city or village, namely, creating a lens from an electric 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 bigger the lamp, the better. The shape of the lamp should be round.

1. The ceramic insulator is broken with a hard object. It is more convenient to do this with a nail.
2. The inner part is gently knocked out through the resulting hole.
3. All "insides" 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 starting a fire.

The method of lighting fire from the lens and the sun is simple and effective, especially when a finished lens is available. I use it myself and recommend it to others as a primary method for starting a fire in sunny weather, thus saving matches and fuel in lighters.

There is an opinion that this method is only good for warm time years, however, as practice has shown, they can make a fire even in winter time year at sub-zero temperatures, but clear weather. The main thing is to have the sun.

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

Lighting a 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 collected in a beam not by a curved glass, but by a concave mirror, and the kindling is located between the mirror and the sun.

On a hike, you can get some semblance of a concave mirror by removing the reflector from a flashlight or car headlight. It's also good to light a fire. gas bottle, or rather its concave shiny bottom (such cylinders are taken on a hike for cooking on gas and multi-fuel burners).

In urban settings, a concave mirror can be bought at a store that sells all sorts of small things.

For example, for these purposes I used a mirror taken from an old microscope: despite its small size, it did an excellent job of lighting a fire from the sun.

Interesting and very unusual option is lighting the fire with a tablespoon. Of course, in order to simplify the task of kindling a fire in the future, the ladle 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 is capable of kindling sensitive tinder, for example, burnt.

Many times I have come across recommendations for making a concave mirror for these purposes from a beer can. It was suggested to polish the bottom of the can with a piece of chocolate. After Les Stroud (Canada's Science of Survival TV host) demonstrated this technique in his video, I decided to try this technique. But, as I expected, nothing good came of this idea: the bottom of the can, instead of becoming mirrored, became dull. Rubbing the bottom of the can with campfire ash and toothpaste didn't add any shine either. The method actually 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, since it is necessary to hold the tinder in a 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 producing fire with a lens.

Building a fire by rubbing wood against wood

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

These methods are very difficult to implement and time consuming. Without preliminary training, it will be difficult to build a fire in this way, especially in our latitudes. In addition, the method is sensitive to wood: not all wood heats up well by friction and, if you make a mistake in choosing it, the chances of success are sharply reduced.

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

Building a fire by rubbing a polypore on wood

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

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

To start a fire in this way, follow these steps:

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

This method is somewhat similar to the fiery plow method, it requires a lot of effort and time for its implementation. In addition, this method requires an ax or other tool that allows the felling and processing of wood.

The disadvantages of this method can also be attributed to the chaga itself, which does not grow in all regions. In any case, I have never found it in the south of Ukraine, including due to the small number of birches growing in this region.

Nevertheless, in a birch grove of all friction methods, this is perhaps the most effective, since using birch for the same method of making fire with the help of an "Indian violin" is not best idea due to the hardness of birch wood.

Building a fire by rubbing a wire on wood

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

The tourist usually has the wire in the repair kit: here it lies in case of breakage of the equipment, which can be repaired with its help. In addition, wire can be used instead of rope to fasten elements together when building a shelter or raft. Traps can be made from wire, in particular, snares, and much more.

Certain types of traps, such as snares and traps, 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 a particular tackle 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 practice 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 in thickness, so as not to break prematurely as a result of heating.

On a hike, the wire is generally very useful - dishes are hung on it over the fire, various devices are made from it, and it can also be used to start a fire.

To start a fire in this way, you must 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 thin 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, in order to prevent rolling from side to side, is fixed in any convenient way.
5. The wire is passed under the chipped area and the “sawing” process begins. They work in a similar way when sawing wood with a chain saw.
6. After the wire has rubbed a little 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 tinder, you can take an old dry stalk of cattail with fluff. If one is not available, another tinder is wound on the stick.
7. A stick with tinder is pressed with a foot against a platform hewn on a log.
8. The handles of the "saw" are crossed once so that the wire forms the number "8" with the broken upper ring.
9. Sawing begins, heating the wire and igniting the tinder. The smoldering tinder moves into the kindling and swells until it ignites.

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

Building a fire with a nail and hammer

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

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

For obvious reasons, this method refers to the urban: hardly anyone would come up with the idea to put a hammer and anvil in a backpack, however, 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 an anvil, two stones. But in this case it will be much more difficult to get fire.

So, in order to light a fire in this way, you must follow the following instructions:

1. The newspaper is rolled up into a tube and pressed with some object so that it does not 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. The heated nail leans against the newspaper until it begins to smolder.
4. If smoldering does not start within a few seconds, the newspaper is removed, and a few more blows are applied to the nail. If the newspaper begins to smolder, it is fanned until a fire appears.

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

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

In this method, a smoldering ember appears inside a cotton roll, which is vigorously rolled with a board along flat floor... Raw cotton wool, which can be removed from, for example, old mattresses and children's toys, is suitable for this method. The principle here is that when the cotton wool is rolled, its fibers rub against each other as the temperature rises. With due diligence, the cotton wool heats up so much that it catches fire.

Instead of cotton wool, you can use cattail fluff or fibers removed from the stems of dried nettles.

The production of fire occurs according to the following scheme:

1. A piece of cotton wool is spread out in 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 the old country house it is applied to the walls, which is why they get dirty if you lean against them) or ash (you can take it from the oven), crushing cotton wool on both sides with them before rolling.
2. Then the roller is turned over and a little more cotton wool is also tightly wound over it in the opposite direction. This is necessary so that the inner roller does not unwind when the board rolls it across the floor. 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 with another board and rolled for even greater density. The denser the roller is, the more chances you have to make a fire.
4. The roller pressed by the board begins to roll intensively on the floor in one direction and the other. The pressure on him should not be excessive. As a result of such rolling, the inner layers of cotton wool heats up and begins to smolder.
5. The smoldering cotton swells, is transferred to the kindling, which ignites as a result of these actions.

This method is realizable only in a settlement or, for example, in a forest house, where you can find even smooth boards. In addition, this method requires a special tinder, from which you can roll a roller.

And yet, despite its shortcomings, this method has a right to exist and can be used in a situation where more simple ways will be unavailable. In particular, it can be implemented in an abandoned village or in an old hut in the forest.

Electrocution of a fire

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

This method requires a source of electrical current. On a hike, a battery taken from a flashlight, or a battery in a cell phone or navigator is usually a source of current.

The poles of the battery are closed with 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, when electric current passes through them, ignite.

V recent times metal scourers for dishes are mass-produced and sold, which outwardly look like steel wool, but cannot be used to produce fire. An experiment carried out by me showed that such sponges not only do not light up when in contact with a battery, but also do not give a spark. In addition, an attempt to close the battery contacts with a thread extracted from such a sponge ended in failure: the battery did not even heat up (heating occurs when short circuit, for example, when the battery is closed with foil), which indicates the possible electrical insulating properties of the material of which these sponges are composed. The experiment with the foil carried out afterwards gave a positive result: this suggests that the matter was not in the battery.

We have already talked in detail about the methods of starting a fire using a battery or accumulator in

There is an opinion that steel wool can be set on fire with the help of a lemon, if you stick a series of steel and copper nails into it, connected with wires in a certain sequence. But the sequence of connecting nails inside one lemon, which is suggested in most videos, does not make any sense, since it does not increase either the current or voltage. And, as it seems to me, the current arising from the "fruit battery" (and this is, according to different sources, 0.2-0.9 V) will not be enough to implement this idea, unless there are a dozen or two of these lemons.

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

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

Details about the main methods of starting a fire using a battery or 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 with high voltage currents can be life-threatening: electrical shock and fire caused by short circuits.

Consider two ways to start a fire using a high voltage electric current.

For the first way:

1. From any electrical appliance(preferably damaged) a plug with a piece of wire is cut off. You can take a piece of the usual insulated wire without a plug, but then you have to make it yourself and using such a wire will not be so convenient.
2. The wire at the end is divided into two contacts and stripped of insulation. This creates two forks on either side.
3. A piece of foil or steel wool is taken as tinder. For the same purposes, a piece of paper is suitable, on which a square is drawn and painted in the center with a simple pencil: a layer of graphite on paper has electrical conductivity and high resistance, so such paper can be effectively used to start a fire using this method.
4. The plug is plugged into an outlet.
5. If exposed wires come into contact with foil, steel wool, or graphite-lined paper, they will catch fire.

For the second way:

1. A cigarette is taken. Instead of a cigarette, you can make a roll-up: put another tinder into a small piece of toilet paper.
2. As in the previous method, a plug with bare wires is made.
3. The edge of the cigarette is slightly wetted with saliva.
4. The plug is plugged into an outlet.
5. Touching the bare wires to the damp part of the cigarette causes sparking, which, by pulling from the cigarette (like lighting a cigarette), helps the tinder to ignite.
6. The smoldering tinder is transferred to the kindling and fanned until a flame appears.

On the basis of the principle implemented in the second method, in my childhood I managed to ignite a fire from a dynamo (by the way, many people use “dynamos” on bicycles, including cycling trips).

It all happened by accident and became the reason for the subsequent replacement of the oilcloth covering kitchen table, which was successfully burned by me. For this I poured a small hill magnesium shavings obtained by filing a magnesium plate. He brought the wires from the dynamo to her. At the moment the dynamo rotated, the wires, due to the shaking, either came into contact with the magnesium, then disconnected from it, as a result of which small green sparks appeared, which actually attracted 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 dazzling flash the moment it burns. This is why its mixture is used to make magnesium light bombs, which are used to blind the enemy.

For many who use modern flint to light a fire, a magnesium bar in a backpack pocket is commonplace. It is from it that the shavings are scraped off onto the tinder, which is ignited by the spark carved by the flint. Magnesium can also be extracted from the remains of an aircraft (here it is used because of its lightness), for example, after an emergency or military action, if there is still something left of the aircraft. Magnesium alloys, containing more than 90% magnesium, are used to manufacture vehicle housings, binoculars and much more. Generally the main problem rather than where to find it, but how to distinguish it from other metals.

Summarizing the methods of producing 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.

The methods where you have to use high voltage current should be resorted to only as a last resort for the reasons indicated earlier.

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

Building a fire with chemicals

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

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

These and other chemical methods of obtaining fire without matches have been analyzed in detail in, so I will not repeat myself here, but will only draw a conclusion on them.

This method is simple and allows you to quickly produce fire, but its big drawback is the high cost and rarity of some of the reagents involved in the reaction. Potassium permanganate, for example, is generally included in the list of precursors, and getting it today is not an easy task. In view of this, this method is rational only with a critical need for a fire and the availability of appropriate reagents in humans.

Making a fire with a shot from a gun

In this method, the tinder is set on fire from the gunpowder of the cartridge, which flares up when the weapon is fired.

Attention!

This method is very unsafe, so you should only use it as a last resort.

As you know, almost every modern hunter has a gun, at least in our country, so this method is primarily for those who like to shoot in the wild, as well as for the military who have the appropriate weapon at their disposal.

In order to light a fire with a shot from a gun, the following instructions should be followed:

1. There is a small depression in the dry ground, although you can dig it yourself.
2. A piece of dry cotton cloth is cut off.
3. Gaskets, wads and all shot 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 is poured out: firstly, there will be plenty of remaining gunpowder in the cartridge (excess gunpowder can even harm), and secondly, the sprinkled gunpowder can be useful for starting a fire in the future.
5. A piece of cloth is cut off and pushed into the cartridge over the powder so that fragments of this tissue do not go beyond the cartridge body.
6. The cartridge is inserted into the weapon.
7. A shot is fired into the previously found recess in the ground - the fabric ejected from the trunk ignites.

Due to the high cost of cartridges, this method is advisable only when other simple methods of starting a fire are not available, and it is still necessary to organize a fire. For many tourists and city residents, it has no practical meaning due to the lack of weapons.

As you can see, the number of methods for obtaining fire is quite large and you can always choose the one that turns out to be optimal in a given situation. The main popularity, according to my observations, was gained by the methods of producing fire with a battery with foil, a fiery bow, a lens from the sun, as well as potassium permanganate with glycerin.

Nevertheless, ideally, you need to know and be able to apply all possible ways for making a fire, because the production of fire 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 large monetary costs (for example, the method with a gun), others are difficult to obtain (for example, the fire bamboo method, although with a strong desire, the bamboo trunk can be obtained even in an area where it does not grow, for example, by purchasing it through Internet), and still others are simply life-threatening (for example, some methods of producing fire with 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 starting a fire, it is more useful to build a shelter from the rain, or simply comfortable spot for an overnight stay, which will require less effort and time, but will allow you to sleep well without having to get up and throw firewood into the fire. If you are at a distance of 100-150 km from a settlement or the nearest road and you have a navigator or a phone with a charged battery, it is wiser not to stay overnight at all, and even more so not to waste battery power on starting a fire. You can sleep during the day, warmed up in the sun, and the rest of the time you can confidently go to civilization using the navigator. Finally, the expenditure of energy for making a fire by friction can be greater than the energy value of food cooked over the fire. In this case, it may be advisable to eat the prey raw.

And not always at modern man there is time to practice these skills, because besides them there are others, for example, the construction of a temporary shelter, orienteering, overcoming different terrain in different weather conditions and much, much more that may be needed not only in survival conditions, but also for the usual hike of the first category of complexity.

That is why here I have selected the methods that I recommend mastering in the first place. These include:

1. Getting fire from sunlight and lens, namely pre-made lens, condom and water bottle options. These methods are easy to learn and can be used in clear weather as an alternative to matches. Personally, I almost always use this method to start a fire.
2. The chemical method, namely, making a 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 obtain fire, for example, by friction.
3. Getting fire by friction, namely with the help of a fiery bow (also known as an Indian violin). This method is the most "harsh", but it allows a person to make fire in nature from scrap materials. You can also try to master the fire plow, so as not to be dependent on the reliability of the bowstring of the bow that rotates the wooden drill.

These are the main ways to start a fire and need to be mastered first. Other options can be studied afterwards, if desired, with the availability of time and the possibility of their implementation.

Interesting video: Making a fire by rolling cotton wool

During outdoor recreation, sometimes you want to warm up by the fire, cook yourself a warm meal, or you desperately need to dry your wet clothes. On a hike, on a picnic, in a fireplace or stove in your country house, you can light a fire different ways... But how to light a fire without matches, if they are damp or, in case of your forgetfulness, stayed at home - in the city. It is generally accepted that a woman is the keeper of the fire (hearth), while a man is its earner. It is difficult to predict a situation when he will not have matches or a lighter. Therefore, the information given here is needed by a man in the first place.

There are many ways to make fire. The main ones are: spark cutting, friction, using a lens.

Living fire from a spark

Fire, as you know, ignites from a spark. The spark can be obtained and with a flint with a chair(medieval way).

AND with the help of modern flint(friction of two metals).

The difference between the two is that modern version Flint does not spark when wet. In contrast, flint and chisel, abundantly wetted with water, successfully strike a spark.

We were taught how to light a fire in a snowy wet forest at school, but not everyone can do it. The simplest rules, as we know, are the presence of a piece of dry wood, the absence of laziness in order to cut dry shavings (the more, the better) - this will take a lot of time. When making shavings, it is better to cover yourself with a tarp to protect yourself from the wind and from possible precipitation. When the fire flares up, you can put wet twigs in the shape of a hut, which, when dried, will also catch fire. Then you can put thicker branches - the fire will gradually gain strength. The only thing left to do was to make fire from a spark.

To create it, you can use special kits available on sale or created by yourself. They include: a skein of linen rags or twine for making rags, burnt linen tinder, a forged chair, flint.

Flint is a hard silica stone that can scratch glass.

The armchair is a metal object in the form of a strip made of hardened steel of art forging, measuring 6 and 7.5 cm. A 7 cm armchair is more convenient to use. A steel blade of a knife can serve as a chair.

Tinder is a material that is highly flammable. Natural natural tinder can be dry grass or wood shavings, birch bark, fir cones, crushed tinder fungi, pine needles, and even fine dust created by wood-boring insects. The contents of a bird's nest will also do. Tinder can be cotton wool, waxed paper, cotton fabric. Also used are burnt pieces of linseed tinder or pieces of birch tinder fungus, made according to a special old Russian technology.

A piece of burnt tinder smoldering from a spark can be safely put into the tin box in which it is stored along with the rest of the pieces - it will safely go out when the access of oxygen is cut off.

We get fire with the help of a flint - armchair, flint, tinder

Juniper bark and birch bark are used as tinder. Create a tinder nest - a lump of crushed juniper bark, which we will then put into a piece of birch bark.

With the help of a stone and a chair, we extract a spark, holding a piece of burnt labor or a tinder fungus close to the stone at the moment the chair hits the stone. A spark, falling on the burnt tinder, causes it to smolder. The smoldering piece is wrapped in a rag or a lump of natural tinder made from juniper (birch tinder fungus or any other of the above-mentioned material), inflated in the palms of the hands, wrapped in birch bark and further inflated. The fire will certainly ignite.

Consider a method of how to light a fire in the forest using the friction method. It can be called the "onion and borav method."

First you need to stock up on dry moss and create a tinder nest. You should not use paper for these purposes - it is unlikely that you will succeed with it.

Next, you need to build a so-called "fire bow", hew out a rod or a spindle, or a drill, that is, the same "drill" - a thick smooth stick of soft wood (from walnut, aspen, juniper, cedar, cypress, willow.) 50 centimeters long as well as create a framework. Its role can be played by a stone with a smooth groove, a piece of wood (wooden block) of dense rock, or an ordinary tree stump. For this, a pine tree, an oak tree is used.

A smooth hole or depression of 1 or 1.5 cm is cut in a wooden base with a knife. The diameter of the hole or depression in the base must correspond to the diameter of the "drill" rod for their snug fit. An incision is then made in the hole for contact with the moss, which will ignite.

Any flexible stick tied with a cord or any rope can serve as a "fire bow". Insert the rod into the bowstring of the "fire bow", turning it so that it is in the loop, without tying any knots.

The fire will be obtained by rubbing the rod-"mace" against the base.

On an island of moss or any other tinder, put a prepared base with a depression and press it with your foot. One end of the stick, twisted with a bowstring, vertically insert into a smooth depression of a stone or wooden base. At the same time, the bowstring is in a horizontal position. With one hand, holding the upper part of the “drill” rod with a piece of bark (so as not to injure the hand), with the other hand, we begin intensive horizontal movements of the “fire bow”, holding it by the rigid part - a flexible stick.

These movements are reminiscent of sawing wood with a conventional saw, and the method itself is the work of a modern hand drill.

You should not create friction by rotating the "mace" with your hands - this is ineffective.

If the moss nest begins to smoke, you need to take it in your palms and fan the fire harder.

When this happens, we put leaves, dry small twigs or other forest raw materials in the form of a wigwam or "pioneer" fire on top of the nest. The fire is on fire - be careful not to burn yourself!

The video shows how to make fire by friction.

You can enjoy the bonfire created with the lens effect only in clear sunny weather. With this method of lighting a fire, the concepts of "sun" and "lens" are inseparable. This method of producing fire is the easiest, but requires some patience.

Anything that reflects light can serve as a lens: glass of a watch or glasses, a piece of ice, a metal spoon or ladle, water in transparent cellophane, or hot-air balloon, binoculars lens, the bottom of a tin can. These objects focus the rays of the sun at one point, which is why ignition occurs. In a dry and light place under the lens we put dry "fuel" - natural tinder or paper.

1. CLOCK GLASS. To create a lens from two glasses of a watch, they are put together, water is poured between them and coated with clay.

2. METAL SPOON. As a lens, it is used together with a cauldron - a carrier of soot and a dense 3-4 cm bundle of toilet paper with an evenly torn off end, which is soiled with soot in the cauldron. From a deep spoon, create that very lens, bending it even more in order to deepen it to focus the sun's rays. Instead of a spoon, you can also use a ladle. In bright sun, place the end of the soot-filled tourniquet close to the middle of the spoon and wait patiently for the ignition. The peculiarity of toilet paper is that it smolders very well. The tourniquet will surely begin to smolder, and the soot will create an ember - a reliable guardian of fire.

If there are no matches, you can light a fire with ice. But this can be done only in sunny weather. So, we must choose a piece clear ice slightly larger than the width of a brick and form a smooth product from it in the form of a huge tablet or a very thick lens 5 cm thick. For this, the surface of a piece of ice is polished by warming it up with the warmth of our hands. Ice Pill can be obtained by freezing melted snow or clean water from the reservoir in any cup or pot. The main rule is that the shape of the lens is a thick middle and thinner edges. Then we install this peculiar lens on a stump, on a stone or any hill and tilt it, directing the sun ray passing through the ice lens to a hill of dry moss or other flammable forest raw materials.

4. WATER IN CELLOPHANE AND BALLOON

These "devices" are characterized by a shorter focal length, therefore, they should be somewhat farther from the combustible object - 1-2 cm.

5. TIN CAN AND CHOCOLATE

The bottom of the can is sanded with chocolate or toothpaste to create a parabolic mirror and used as a lens.

Chemical substances

Chemicals ignite when mixed, rubbed or struck. The proportions of these substances should also be adhered to.

Component options:

• Potassium permanganate (potassium permanganate) and sugar (in a ratio of 9: 1);
• Cover the potassium permanganate with tinder (for example, with a cloth or napkin), carefully drip on top with 2-3 drops of antifreeze or glycerin;
• Sugar and potassium chlorate (3: 1 ratio).

Pour potassium permanganate and sugar on a dry wooden board (not rotten), rub with a stick as they do in a mortar. After 20 seconds, a fire appears as a result of a chemical reaction.

The extracted fire can be transferred to an original homemade wooden "stump stove". To do this, you need to cut a thick log into 6 parts and tie these parts in the form of a hemp, without tightening them tightly. Then put the thin bark of this hemp (birch bark) in the middle of our "stove" - ​​between the logs. With the extracted fire, you can kindle a birch bark and boldly put a kettle or bricks on the "stump stove" that will warm your home. You will need 10 such bricks, periodically they can be heated on a miracle oven.

You are a tourist, hunter, fisherman or just a casual traveler lost in nature, armed with such information, you will feel much more confident.

Video

The program "Galileo" about methods of making fire without matches.

An experiment in galileo: Fire by friction.

Experience in Galileo: potassium permanganate and hydrogen peroxide.

Lighting a fire without matches is not as difficult as it might seem at first glance. Having learned this, you can get out of a difficult situation. The survival time depends on your skill in making fire. Consider in this article how to make a fire using a knife (any piece of steel). First of all, choose a place to start a fire. It should be sheltered from rain and wind. If you need to make a fire in the snow, then the snow is either cleared from the place of the fire in a radius of several meters, or a platform is created from thick logs and stones, on which the fire is made in the future.

Branches of dried up trees can be used as fuel. In wet weather, look for branches on standing trees, not on the ground. They will be drier, since they are covered from moisture by the crown of the tree, and dry faster in the wind. In addition, dry wood can be found under the trunks of felled trees. In areas of rare vegetation, you can use dry roots, herbs, peat, animal fat and even coal and shale tar. Spongy filaments of a raincoat mushroom, pine needles and cones, tree bark, ferns and lichens, scraps of clothing, twine, and bird feathers also ignite well. An excellent material for starting a fire is dust, which can be found even in the rain, clearing away the wet top layer of decayed logs.

The bottom of the campfire is lined with dry, even branches as thick as a finger, so that a layer of air remains under them. This will provide oxygen access, and the branches will act as a blower in the stove. From above, thin dry twigs, birch bark, pine needles or other, previously described, highly flammable materials are laid in the form of a hut.

The next step is to make a horn tube for lighting a fire. Birch bark is an excellent material for this. If it is absent, dry pine bark, taken with a tube entirely from a dry branch, will do. Alternatively, you can use dry grass, fern leaves, etc. Several thin resinous twigs, pine needles, thin strips of birch bark are placed inside the tube.

Now you need to decide on the tinder. It is also very important that it is dry and flammable. A piece of cotton wool from the lining of a jacket, dust, felt, the smallest shavings, etc. are suitable as tinder. Now we come directly to the extraction of fire. A small spark is enough for the tinder to smolder. Such a spark is struck in regular lighter and is well known to all. To do this, a blow or strike with a steel bar is made on a hard stone.

Pick a fist-sized rock on the ground — silicon, granite, marble, and other hard rocks will do. If the stone is smooth and does not have sharp corners, split it between two larger ones. At a distance of a millimeter, a piece of tinder is applied to the edge of the stone, after which a knife is struck along the edge of the stone in the direction of the tinder. A spark caught on dry tinder will certainly cause it to smolder, you will see a faint thread of smoke. Blow gently, not hard, but evenly and continuously on the tinder to increase the focus of decay.

If the stone crumbles and sparks do not come out, do not despair. Please select another stone and try again. If you don't have a knife or other piece of steel, you can strike a spark by striking the edge of one stone against the edge of another.

After receiving a smoldering piece of tinder, it is placed in a pre-prepared tube. Holding it at a distance of 25-30 centimeters from the face, begin to smoothly and evenly inflate the ember. Air will pass through the tube, heating its contents, the coal will grow, and soon the birch bark and needles will burst into flames. Using the bundle like a large match, light the small dry twigs in the fire.

There are some guidelines to keep in mind when preserving the fire. If you put a thick rotten log or, on the contrary, a freshly cut log in the fire at night, the fire will burn slowly and for a long time. If you save the red embers of the fire by sprinkling them with ash and a layer of soil on top, then it will be easier for you to get fire in the morning. In addition, having several small fires around will warm you better than one big one.

Another way:

Making a fire without matches.

To do this, you will need what is in any home - this is potassium permanganate and glycerin.

Pour about 1 gram of potassium permanganate (potassium permanganate), ground into a fine powder. Then carefully drop 2-3 drops of glycerin from a pipette or glass tube onto it and quickly remove your hand. It will take only 2-3 seconds, and you will see how the fire breaks out.

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL

How to light a fire correctly? How to light a fire without matches? Types of bonfires

Fire is necessary for heating, drying clothes, signaling, cooking, purifying water by boiling it. Survival time will increase or decrease depending on your ability to start a fire.

If you have matches, you can start a fire in any conditions and in any weather. If action is anticipated in remote areas, stock up on enough matches, which should always be kept with you in a waterproof bag. It is necessary to learn how to keep the flame of a match as long as possible in strong winds.

Campfire site

Campfire site.

It is chosen in an open, but protected from the wind, safe place, preferably near water. A bonfire should be built on already trampled sites or on old bonfires. It is advisable to have a sapper shovel with you: it is convenient for it to remove the sod from the place chosen for the fire. As a last resort, an ax is used for this. In any case, all dry leaves, branches, needles, grass can catch fire, you should shake off the fireplace at a distance of 1–1.5 meters.

Fire safety.

Do not make fires in areas with dry reeds, reeds, moss, or grass. Fire goes on them with great speed.

Do not make a fire in peat bogs. Remember that smoldering peat is very difficult to extinguish, even by flooding it with water. Unnoticed smoldering can easily turn into a destructive peat fire.

Lighting a fire

Kindling.

Kindling a fire begins with the preparation of kindling, which is made from small spruce twigs, birch bark, dry moss, lichen, shavings, splinters. In damp weather, kindling is obtained from wood chips split with an ax, from dry coniferous litter, sheltered from the rain by tree crowns.

Prepared kindling-fuse is tightly laid under small brushwood folded in a hut or a well and set on fire, and on top, neatly thicker brushwood and other firewood.

In the rain, a fire is made under the cover of a cape or raincoat held by two tourists. How stronger wind or rain, the denser should be the laying of the kindling and fuel on the fire. In bad weather, you need to have dry alcohol, old photographic film, a candle stub, a piece of plexiglass or rubber with you.

Making a fire without matches.

Before trying to light a fire without matches, prepare some dry, flammable materials. Then, shelter them from wind and moisture. Good substances can be rot, scraps of clothing, rope or twine, dry palm leaves, wood shavings and sawdust, bird feathers, woolly plant fibers, and others. To stock up on them for future use, set aside some in a waterproof bag.

Sun and lens.

A camera lens, a convex lens from binoculars or a telescope, and finally, a mirror can be used to focus the sun's rays on flammable substances.

Flint and flint (steel plate).

In the absence of matches, this The best way quickly ignite dry tinder. The flint can be the corresponding side of the waterproof matchbox or a solid piece of stone. Hold the flint as close to the tinder as possible and hit it with a steel knife blade or some small block of steel. Strike so that the sparks hit the center of the tinder. When it starts to smoke, blow lightly over the flame. You can add some fuel to the tinder, or you can transfer the tinder to fuel. If you can't strike a spark with the first stone, try another.

Friction of wood on wood.

Given that frictional fire can be difficult to achieve, use it as a last resort.

Bow and drill.

Make a bouncy bow by pulling it on with a string, string, or belt. Use it to roll a dry soft shaft through a small hole made in a dry, hard block of wood. The result will be a powdery black dust that will spark with further friction. Lift the block and sprinkle this powder onto the flammable substance (tinder).

Firewood for the fire.

Near settlements, as well as in inhabited areas, firewood that is not suitable for the economic needs of the local population can be used as fuel, for example, small fallen trees, dry crooked forests, old stumps. If there is no such fuel nearby, firewood for the fire should be purchased through the forestry or take stoves and gas stoves with you on a hike.

In taiga regions, there is enough brushwood, dead wood, dead wood. When preparing fuel, it should be borne in mind that damp and rotten wood produces a lot of smoke, but little heat; small brushwood burns out in the first two to three minutes; aspen and fir firewood is bad because it “shoots” too much sparks.

For cooking, it is better to use birch and alder deadwood, which burns evenly and almost without smoke. If you need to make a large hot fire, for example, in winter when you have to spend the night, the best firewood will be pine, cedar and spruce dead wood.

Felling dead wood.

When preparing dead wood for a fire, first determine the natural slope of the tree and the place of its possible fall, then look through the likely path of the falling tree to make sure that it does not hang on adjacent crowns, and only after that, from the side where it is planned to fell the tree, do undercut or undercut by a third of the trunk diameter.

Hello dear readers of my security blog. With you Vladimir Raichev, the author of this blog. For a long time I have not published articles in which I would tell how to survive in conditions of autonomy. Therefore, today let's talk about how to make fire with improvised means.

You know, once I tried to make fire by rubbing a wooden rod about wooden base... Do you know how they show in films? I twirled the stick in my hands and woo a la, the fire was produced. Honestly, I got all wet then, but I never got fire. So how do you light a fire in the field without a match or lighter?

Anyone can find themselves in conditions autonomous existence... Cruise ship crash, plane crash, tourists lost in the forest. The likelihood of survival away from civilization depends on many factors. The ability to make fire plays one of the main roles here.

Very often people find themselves in the conditions of existence in the wild unprepared. And they have to survive using the set of objects that, at first glance, do not have the necessary properties. In this article, we will figure out how unusual things can be used to get fire.

We use the battery to get fire

In this case, a finger-type battery is preferable. But, in principle, any energy source is suitable. In this method, we also need foil and a piece of cotton wool or cotton fabric.

Cut a strip 1 cm wide from the foil, while leaving 2-3 mm wide in the central part of the strip. The foil should be long enough to connect the ends of the strip to the battery contacts. The shape of the strip after all the manipulations resembles hourglass.

Then a cloth or cotton wool is wound on the central (narrow) part of the foil and the ends of the strip are connected to the positive and negative terminals of the battery. As a result of the thermal action of the electric current, the combustible material on the foil is ignited. All that needs to be done after this is to transfer the fire to the previously prepared materials for the fire.

Getting fire with a lens

The property of collecting sunlight in one point makes the lens one of the most effective ways to get fire on a sunny day. For this, it is necessary to prepare a combustible material (moss, dry needles, birch bark) and hold the lens in such a way that the sunlight, focused at one point, ignites the dry material.

Uncommon this method is that quite ordinary things can be used as a lens, which can be divided into 2 groups:

These are, at first glance, unnecessary items that can help us get what Prometheus once paid very dearly for. In cases where human life danger threatens, any little thing, any thing can become irreplaceable. And after the fire is received, you can start building a temporary dwelling.

For today, everyone who has read to the end is a fine fellow. Don't forget to subscribe to blog updates so you don't miss out on the most interesting posts. Share the secrets of survival with your friends on social networks, I am sure that they will also be interested in reading about it. Until next time, bye, bye.

Man has been using fire for many millennia, and the further, the greater the role fire plays in a person's life. At first, he simply warmed, scared away wild animals, cooked food on it, then he began to serve for the production of pottery, glass, bricks, metal processing, and today he delivers astronauts and cargo to orbit, sets millions of cars in motion.

Making a fire using matches or a lighter is extremely easy today. But has a fire always been made like that? Even 70-80 years ago, in most of the territory of our country, there were no lighters, and matches were in short supply, so in villages and towns, and in cities, fire was kindled without matches.

How to make fire without matches?

Today, few people know how to light or know how to light a fire without matches.

For making a fire without matches, people have used forged flint for many centuries. Flame is a small flat forged metal plate. If you hit such a plate on the sharp edge of the stone, then microscopic particles will break off from the plate - they are the very sparks from which fire was made in ancient times. Flint was used as a stone - a natural mineral with very sharp edges. It was about these lands that they "cut through", "hacked" or "hewed" the flint - hence the name "krealo", which is more ancient and more widespread in Russia.

The sparks obtained in this way fell on a special material - tinder. The tinder from the spark began to smolder, becoming hotter and hotter, and turned into a coal - a firebrand, from which dry shavings, grass, flax, moss or birch bark easily caught fire. In such a simple way, our ancestors could deftly and quickly make fire without matches and a lighter.

Detailed instructions for making a fire without matches

To make fire without matches, you will need:
- forged armchair (flint),
- a piece of flint,
- tin tinderbox with fabric linen tinder,
- a skein of jute rope for preparing dry kindling.

Cut 5-6 pieces of rope 10-12 cm each and unbraid them into threads.

Divide each thread into separate fibers.

Crumple the resulting fibers into a ball.

Remove a rectangular piece of tinder (burnt matter) from a metal tinderbox and place it on top of a flat piece of flint.

Then slide the tinder to the sharp edge of the flint so that the edge of the flint and the edge of the tinder match. It is important that the edge of the tinder does not hang over the flint, and the edge of the flint is not visible from under the tinder. Take the chair and attach it with a long working surface (blade) to the sharp edge of the flint on which you have the tinder. We will call this position "initial". Now lift the chair 15-20 cm up and, lowering it down, make a sliding blow on the edge of the flint.

At the moment of impact when working surface the armchair, going down, comes into contact with the sharp edge of the flint, metal particles are pinched off from the armchair and in the form of sparks scatter in all directions.

Sparks hitting the tinder ignite it and it begins to smolder. Often, one blow is not enough and it may take a series of 4-5 blows before you see the spark hit the tinder and the tinder smolders.

Place the smoldering tinder inside the lump of firewood you have prepared and begin to inflate it. Make sure that the burning tinder is in the center of the kindling ball at all times.