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

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

In particular, in addition to matches, there are other special tools for. So, for example, you can start a fire without matches and a lighter with the help of a fire starter or a fire piston. However, if you have these tools at hand, you can’t talk about an emergency, since it’s no more difficult to make a fire with them than with matches. Therefore, further we will consider non-standard methods, when even these tools were not available.

Lighting a 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 flint lighter without gas;
• Lens;
• concave mirror;
• The friction of wood on wood;
• Rubbing tinder fungus on wood;
• Friction of wire on wood;
• With a nail and a hammer;
• Rolling cotton wool;
• Electricity;
• With the help of chemical reagents;
• 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 these methods of making fire in more detail.

Making a fire with flint and flint

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

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

In the wild, find flint or other durable stone usually not a problem. As an armchair, many use cleavers, knives and other steel tools.

For this method, you need 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 steel.

I know of five ways to prepare first-class tinder suitable for this method:

1. The first tinder is made from two tinder fungi. A tinder fungus is torn off a birch, from which the tubular part is cut off, and the “velvet” is left. There is a chaga (a type 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 tinder is quickly harvested, but it takes a long time to catch a spark.
2. The second tinder is made from the tinder fungus by digestion. To do this, a "velvet" is cut off from the tinder fungus and placed in an ash solution (1 part of the ash from the fire, 2 parts of water). Tinder in the ashes is boiled for 2 hours, after which it is removed and beaten off with a smooth stick to the state of a rag. After that, the tinder is well dried and kneaded. To ignite such tinder, a part of it is torn off and a spark is struck onto a 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: having once spent one match on cooking tinder on 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 a spark and begins to smolder. The method is convenient in that it takes almost no time and effort to prepare this tinder, as well as preliminary lighting of a fire.
4. The fourth tinder can be obtained by burning cotton fabric without access to oxygen. This is the so-called zhenka. The fabric is rolled up and tucked into, for example, tin can. The jar is closed and put into the fire. When the smoke and flames cease to appear from the cracks of the jar, the jar, together with the tinder, is removed from the fire and left to cool in the air. The resulting tinder catches a spark very easily, but for its preparation, a cloth and a fire made in another way are needed, as is the case with the digestion of tinder fungus.
5. The fifth tinder is the recently extinguished embers of a fire. Only those on which there is still a layer of white ash are suitable. Catching a spark, such an ember begins to smolder, a second ember is brought to it and a fire is blown, from which kindling is ignited. Such coals easily catch a spark, but require pre-preparation. However, like the other options, this one is quite suitable for saving other means of ignition.

Any of these tinder should be protected from moisture. Ideally, put it in an airtight container, such as a plastic vitamin jar or PET bottle with a wide mouth for easy removal.

Trutovik, or tinder fungus, in fact, got its name from the fact that good tinder has long been made from it.

Now that you have the right tinder, you can start making fire with flint and flint. For this:

1. By striking 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 the chances of an early success.
2. Chipped flint with tinder is clamped in one hand, the armchair 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 hitting the flint on the flint, sparks are struck, which should set fire to the tinder. If a burnt log is kindled, then the arm rests against it, and sparks are cut out by blowing flint from top to bottom.
4. The tinder that has caught the spark is placed in kindling and blown up until a fire appears.

In the acclaimed 2016 film The Revenant, based on true events, main character, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, puts 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 tinder, but why complicate your life, which is already not sugar?

This method is quite whimsical, as it requires the presence of a specially prepared tinder, which should be protected from moisture. However, if such tinder is still available, then starting a fire with this method will be easy and fast: it was not in vain 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 making 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 steel: a spark is ignited by 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 found in a tourist first-aid kit), or fluff from an old cattail growing along freshwater reservoirs, then there will be enough lighter sparks to set them on fire. 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 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 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 and rips. All pieces are stacked in a pile with a torn part in one direction.
3. The resulting stack is pressed against the lighter in a place where sparks fly out when the wheel rotates. Torn loose parts should be directed towards the sparks.
4. A rolling blow of the palm on the wheel of the lighter sparks on a stack of toilet paper. Sparking is repeated until the paper begins to smolder.
5. The paper is inflated until the appearance of fire.

For this method, you need good dry toilet paper (preferably soft and loose, not thick, like Whatman paper). I can say that not every toilet paper is equally well suited for igniting in this way: the paper that has lain in the pocket of your trousers and is damp because of this does not flare up well.

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

Many people recommend putting kindling in a pocket to dry, but in my experience, paper that has lain in a pants pocket does not dry, but is moistened. This is most likely due to sweating and high humidity in the air between the body and clothing.

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

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 any other suitable method for this purpose and bent so that a funnel is formed in the center of the sheet. If this is not done, fire can also be obtained, but more powder scraped from the misch metal of the lighter rod will be needed.
3. The lighter is initially positioned horizontally above the paper so that the sparks cannot ignite the paper.
4. The wheel of the lighter slowly scrolls until the right amount of powder scraped off the lighter rod is collected on the paper. When turning the wheel, try to avoid the appearance of sparks.
5. The powder collects in the center of the paper, in the place 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 is good if you have an empty lighter. But, as my experience has shown, if the lighter is used until there is no gas left in it, there will be little sense from it: already at the stage of scraping off the misch metal shavings, the rod can fly out and get lost, depriving a person of the opportunity to finish the job.

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 handle, especially when you have to use it in the cold with frozen hands.

Attention!

In the cold, many cheap lighters perform very poorly due to cooling and reducing the pressure of the gas inside them. Therefore, it is recommended to carry them in an inner pocket and take them out just before use. It's also a good idea to have at least two lighters and matches or a steel flint in case one breaks.

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

Building a fire with a lens from the sun

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 can be removed from glasses, a camera, binoculars and other devices in which it may be included during a hike. Sometimes they take a small magnifying glass on a hike to look at the map. A magnifying glass is available on some models of flatbed compasses.

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

Video: Building a fire with a condom

These and other methods of making fire with the help of 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 the creation of 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 stairwell, and among the garbage.

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

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

Such a lens, compared with many others made from improvised means, is a very effective means for making fire.

The method of making fire from the lens and the sun is simple and effective, especially when there is a ready-made lens. I use it myself and recommend it to others as my primary method of starting a fire in sunny weather, saving matches and lighter fuel.

There is an opinion that this method is good only in 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 into a beam not by curved glass, but by a concave mirror, and the kindling is located between the mirror and the sun.

When hiking, you can get some semblance of a concave mirror if you remove the reflector from a flashlight or car headlight. Also good at lighting 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 conditions, a concave mirror can be bought at a store where they sell 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 making fire from the sun.

Interesting and very unusual option is kindling a fire with a tablespoon. Of course, in order to simplify the task of starting 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 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 proposed to polish the bottom of the jar with a piece of chocolate. After Les Stroud (Canadian host of the television program Science of Survival) 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 jar, instead of becoming a mirror, became matte. Rubbing the bottom of the jar with fire ash and toothpaste didn't add any shine either. The method, which is really suitable for polishing, turned out to be simple, but tedious: it turned out that the bottom of the jar could be polished with a piece of cloth.

Compared to the method of obtaining fire with a lens, this method is less convenient, since you have to hold the tinder canopy between the sun and the mirror, which is not always convenient. In addition, tinder itself, in most cases, with its shadow partially obscures the sun's rays falling on the mirror, thereby reducing the effectiveness of the method. In general, this method has the same advantages and disadvantages as the method of making 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 during friction the wood heats up, and the dust formed as a result of friction begins to smolder. This smoldering dust is transferred to the kindling, setting it on fire.

These methods are very complex and labor intensive. Without preliminary training, it will be difficult to make a fire in this way, especially in our latitudes. In addition, the method is sensitive to wood: not every tree is well heated by 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 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 there are no more stones and metal besides the trees in the area. Therefore, it makes sense to spend time and effort on its development, especially since fire in a campaign or survival conditions is one of the main things for a comfortable and safe stay in the wild.

Making a 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 the wood and the tinder fungus, namely the chaga.

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

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

1. In the trunk of a dry tree in its upper part, two sides 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 with a cut is pressed with both hands to the point formed by the edges, and they begin to move. These movements should be of a reciprocating nature, directed along the trunk, and performed before the start of smoldering of the chaga.
4. The smoldering chaga is transferred to kindling and fanned until a fire appears.

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

The disadvantages of this method include 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.

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

Making a fire by rubbing wire on wood

In this method, tinder is ignited by a wire heated by friction against wood.

A tourist usually has a wire in a repair kit: here it lies in case of equipment breakdown, which can be repaired with it. 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.

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 local legislation says about this. So, in one region the use of a particular gear may be allowed, while in another it is prohibited by law. It is clear that no one will pay attention to these things in terms of survival, 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, wire is generally very useful - dishes are hung on it over a fire, various devices are made from it, and it can also be used to make a fire.

To make 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 (about 20-30 cm) is cut down on one side.
4. The log is placed on a dry platform and, in order to prevent rolling from side to side, it is fixed in any convenient way.
5. The wire is passed under the hewn area, and the “sawing” process begins. They work in the same way when sawing wood with a chain saw.
6. After the wire has rubbed a little against the wood and a small groove is formed, 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 fluff. If one is not available, another tinder is wound around the stick.
7. A stick with tinder is pressed with a foot to 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 top ring broken.
9. Sawing begins, leading to heating of the wire and ignition of tinder from it. The smoldering tinder moves into the kindling and swells until it ignites.

Like other methods of making a fire by friction, this method is laborious, however, if wire and suitable tinder are available, 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 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.

Starting a fire with a nail and hammer

This method is based on the ability of the metal to heat up during a sharp deformation and, 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, kindling can be lit.

For obvious reasons, this method belongs to the urban ones: it is unlikely that anyone would come up with the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bputting a hammer and anvil in a backpack, however, in the wild, you can also dodge by finding a replacement for them. 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, to set fire to a fire in this way, you must follow the following instructions:

1. The newspaper is folded 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 has not begun within a few seconds, the newspaper is removed and a few more blows are applied to the nail. If the newspaper began to smolder, it is blown up until a fire appears.

As I said earlier, this method is advisable at home. Trying your luck in the wild, trying to kindle a fire in this way, wasting precious time and effort, I would not recommend. However, if fire is still vital, and other methods cannot be implemented for some reason, it can also be used. 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 is created inside a cotton ball, which is vigorously rolled with a board along flat floor. Untreated cotton wool is suitable for this method, which can be extracted, for example, from old mattresses and children's toys. The principle here is that when rolling cotton wool, its fibers rub against each other with an increase in temperature. With due diligence, the cotton wool heats up so much that it catches fire.

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

Fire is fired in the following way:

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 moisten 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 makes them dirty if you lean against them) or ash (you can take it from the oven), crushing the cotton wool on both sides before rolling it.
2. Then the roller is turned 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 is rolled 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 chances 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 are heated and begin to smolder.
5. Smoldering cotton wool swells, is transferred to kindling, which ignites as a result of these actions.

This method is implemented only in the conditions of 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 the right to exist and can be used in a situation where more simple ways will not be available. In particular, it can be implemented in an abandoned village or in an old hut in the forest.

Starting a fire with electric current

Fire with electric current 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, a spark ignites the tinder when the contacts close.

This method requires a power source. On a hike, a battery taken from a flashlight, or a cell phone or navigator battery, usually acts as 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 leftovers), which, when an electric current passes through them, light up.

V Lately mass-produced and sold metal dishcloths 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 when in contact with a battery, but also do not give a spark. In addition, an attempt to close the contacts of the battery with a thread removed from such a washcloth ended in failure: the battery did not even get warm (heating occurs when short circuit, for example, when closing the battery with foil), which indicates the possible electrical insulating abilities of the material from which these washcloths are composed. The experiment carried out after the foil gave a positive result: this suggests that it was not the battery.

We have already discussed in detail about the methods of making a fire using a battery or accumulator 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, connected to each other in a certain sequence by wires. But the sequence of connecting nails inside one lemon, which is offered in most videos, does not make any sense, since it does not increase either the current strength or the voltage. 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 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 mid-latitude wilderness where lemons do not grow. So instead of a dozen lemons, you can take almost any fruit or vegetable that is found in our area (for example, wild apples), since they also contain the electrolyte necessary to generate electricity. The matter will remain small - 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 especially 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, to practically of little use.

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

Attention!

Starting a fire with high voltage current can be life-threatening: possible electric shock and fire caused by a short circuit.

Consider two ways to make a fire using 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. 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 over in the center with a simple pencil: the graphite layer on paper has electrical conductivity and high resistance, so such paper can be effectively used to make a fire by this method.
4. The plug is plugged into an outlet.
5. Contact of bare wires with foil, steel wool, or graphite-painted paper causes them to ignite.

For the second way:

1. Takes a cigarette. Instead of a cigarette, you can make a self-rolling one: hammer another tinder into a small piece of toilet paper.
2. As in the previous method, a plug is made with bare wires.
3. The edge of the cigarette is slightly wetted with saliva.
4. The plug is plugged into an outlet.
5. Touching bare wires to the wet part of the cigarette causes sparking, which, due to the puff from the cigarette (as when lighting a cigarette), helps ignite the tinder.
6. The smoldering tinder is transferred to kindling and fanned until a flame appears.

Based on the principle implemented in the second method, in my childhood I managed to light a fire from a dynamo (“dynamos”, by the way, are used by many on bicycles, including cycling trips).

Everything turned out by chance and became the reason for the subsequent replacement of the oilcloth covering kitchen table, which was successfully burned by me. For this I poured small hill magnesium shavings obtained by processing a magnesium plate with a file. To her brought the wires coming from the dynamo. As the dynamo rotated, the wires alternately came into contact with the magnesium, then detached 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 through 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 moment of sunbathing. That is why its mixture is used to produce magnesium flash bombs, which are used to blind the enemy.

For many who use a modern fire starter to start a fire, a magnesium bar in a backpack pocket is a common thing. It is from him that shavings are scraped off onto the tinder, which is ignited by a spark carved by a steel. Magnesium can also be extracted from the remains of an aircraft (here it is used due to its lightness), for example, after an emergency or military operations, if there is still something left of the aircraft. Magnesium alloys, containing more than 90% magnesium, are used to make vehicle bodies, 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 with the help of electric current, I can say that they are very easy to use, although they do not always guarantee success. Some of them are sold in the wild with a battery or accumulator, while others require more civilized conditions.

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

Methods where you have to use a 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 below the horizon, and other methods are too difficult to implement. Nevertheless, you always need to look and evaluate the situation: sometimes making a fire is not as important as staying in touch, for example, with a rescue team, because often the same batteries are used to make a fire by this method and to operate a mobile phone, the charge of which, known to be unlimited. Staying in the wild without a navigator or phone is sometimes more dangerous than without fire.

Lighting a fire with chemicals

Some chemical reactions flow violently with the release of such an amount of heat that 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 wetting potassium permanganate with anhydrous glycerin, which can be found in the first aid kit. In urban conditions, you can also use cotton wool soaked in alcohol to get a fire, which must be put on potassium permanganate soaked in concentrated sulfuric acid.

These and other chemical methods for producing fire without matches were discussed 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 start a 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 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 presence of appropriate reagents in humans.

Starting a fire with a shotgun

In this method, the tinder is set on fire from the gunpowder of the cartridge that flares up during the firing of the weapon.

Attention!

This method is very unsafe, so it should be used only in extreme cases.

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 weapons at their disposal.

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

1. There is a small depression in the dry ground, although you can dig it yourself.
2. A piece of dry cotton fabric is cut off.
3. Gaskets, wads and all shot are removed from the hunting cartridge. If the cartridge is combat, a bullet is removed from it.
4. Half of the gunpowder available 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 spilled gunpowder can be useful for starting a fire in the future.
5. A piece of fabric is cut off and put into the cartridge over the gunpowder 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 fired into the previously found recess in the ground - the fabric that has flown out of the barrel ignites.

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

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

Nevertheless, ideally one should know and be able to apply all possible ways for making fire, because the extraction of fire in a situation of emergency survival 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 obtain (for example, the fire bamboo method, although with a strong desire you can get a bamboo trunk even in an area where it does not grow, for example, by buying it through Internet), and still others are simply life-threatening (for example, some methods of making 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 building a fire, it is more useful to build a shelter from the rain or just 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 wood on 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 stop for the night at all, and even more so not to waste battery power on making fire. You can sleep during the day, warming up in the sun, and the rest of the time you can confidently go out to civilization using the navigator. Finally, the expenditure of forces for making a fire by friction can be greater than the energy value of food cooked on a fire. In this case, it may be appropriate to eat the prey raw.

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

That is why here I have 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 water bottle. These methods are easy to learn and can be used in clear weather as an alternative to matches. Personally, I almost always start a fire with 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 effort to get a fire, for example, by friction.
3. Obtaining fire by friction, namely with the help of a fiery bow (it is also an Indian violin). This method is the most "severe", but allows a person to make fire in nature from improvised materials. You can also try to master the fiery plow, so as not to be dependent on the reliability of the bowstring of the bow that rotates the wooden drill.

These are the basic ways to make a fire that you need to master first. Other options can be explored later if desired, the time available and the possibility of their implementation.

Interesting video: Making a fire by rolling cotton wool

During outdoor recreation, sometimes you want to warm yourself by the fire, cook yourself a warm meal, or you really 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, left at home - in the city. It is generally accepted that a woman is the keeper of the fire (hearth), while a man is his earner. It is difficult to predict the situation when he does not have matches or a lighter with him. 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: sparking, friction, using a lens.

Living fire from a spark

Fire, as you know, ignites from a spark. Spark can be obtained using flint with flint(medieval way).

AND with modern flame(friction of two metals).

The difference between them is that modern version A flint and flint in the wet state does not create a spark. In contrast, flint and flint, abundantly soaked 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 plan dry chips (the more the better) - it will take a lot of time. When making chips, 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 branches in the form of a hut, which, drying out, will also light up. Then you can put thicker branches - the fire will gradually gain strength. The only thing left to do is to get the fire out of the spark.

To create it, you can use special kits that are commercially available or created by yourself. They include: a skein of linen rags or twine to create rags, burnt linen tinder, forged flint, flint.

Flint is a hard silica stone that can scratch glass.

Armchair - a metal object in the form of a strip of hardened artistic forged steel sized 6 and 7.5 cm. A 7 cm armchair is more convenient to use. The steel blade of a knife can serve as an armchair.

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

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 oxygen is cut off.

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

Juniper bark and birch bark are used as tinder. We 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 flint, we extract a spark, holding a piece of burnt labor or a tinder fungus close to the stone at the moment the flint hits the stone. A spark, falling on the burnt tinder, leads to its smoldering. A smoldering piece is wrapped in a rag or a lump of natural juniper tinder (birch tinder fungus or any other material mentioned above), inflated in the palms, wrapped in birch bark and further inflated. The fire will surely flare up.

Consider the method of how to light a fire in the forest by friction. It can be called the "bow and drill 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 the so-called "fiery bow", carve out a rod or 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 and also create a base. Its role can be played by a stone with a smooth depression, a piece of wood (wooden plank) of dense rock, or an ordinary tree stump. For this, a pine tree, an oak tree is used.

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

A "fiery bow" can be any flexible stick tied with a cord or any rope. Insert the rod into the string of the “fiery bow”, turning it so that it is in the loop, without tying any knots.

Fire will be produced by rubbing the rod-"mace" on the base.

On an island of moss or any other tinder, put the prepared base with a recess and press it with your foot. Place one end of the stick wrapped with a bowstring vertically into a smooth recess in a stone or wooden base. The bowstring is in a horizontal position. With one hand, holding the upper part of the “bore” rod with a piece of bark (so as not to damage the hand), with the other hand we begin intensive horizontal movements of the “fiery bow”, holding it by the hard part - a flexible stick.

These movements are reminiscent of sawing a tree with an ordinary 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 nest of moss begins to smoke, it must be taken in the palm of your hand and fan the fire harder.

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

The video shows how to make fire by friction.

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

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

1. CLOCK GLASS. To create a lens from two watch glasses, 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 kettle - a carrier of soot and a dense 3-4-cm bundle of toilet paper with an evenly torn off end, which is stained with the soot of the kettle. The same lens is created from a deep spoon, bending it even more to deepen it to focus the sun's rays. Instead of a spoon, you can also use a ladle. In the bright sun, we set the end of the bundle with soot close to the middle of the spoon and patiently wait 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 fire keeper.

In the absence of matches, you can light a fire with ice. But this can only be done in sunny weather. So let's pick a piece. clear ice slightly larger than the width of a brick and form a smooth product out of it in the form of a huge tablet or a very thick lens 5 cm thick. To do this, the surface of a piece of ice is polished, heating it with the warmth of the hands. Ice Pill can be obtained by freezing melted snow or clean water from a pond 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 kind of lens on a stump, on a stone or any hill and tilt it, directing a ray of the sun passing through an ice lens, onto a hill of dry moss or other flammable forest raw materials.

4. WATER IN CELLOPHAN AND BALLOON

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

5. CAN AND CHOCOLATE

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

Chemical substances

When mixed, rubbed or struck, the chemicals ignite. You should also adhere to the proportions of these substances.

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 a napkin), carefully drip 2-3 drops of antifreeze or glycerin on top;
• Sugar and potassium chlorate (proportion 3: 1).

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

The extracted fire can be transferred to the original home-made 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 birch bark and safely put a kettle or bricks on the “stump stove”, which will warm your home. You will need 10 such bricks, periodically they can be heated on a miracle stove.

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

Video

Transmission "Galileo" about how to make fire without matches.

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. By learning this, you will be able to get out of a difficult situation. The duration of survival depends on your ability to make fire. Consider in this article how to make a fire with a knife (any piece of steel). First of all, choose a place to start a fire. It must be protected 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 within a radius of several meters, or a platform is created from thick logs and stones, on which the fire is set up in the future.

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

The bottom of the fire pit is lined with dry, even finger-thick branches, 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. On top, in the form of a hut, thin dry twigs, birch bark, pine needles or other previously described, highly flammable materials are laid.

The next step is to make a fire tube. An excellent material for this is birch bark. In case of its absence, dry pine bark, taken entirely from a dry branch with a tube, will do. In addition, dry grass, fern leaves, etc. can be used. 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. As a tinder, a piece of cotton wool from the lining of a jacket, dust, felt, the smallest shavings, etc. is suitable. Now we come directly to the production of fire. In order for the tinder to begin to smolder, a small spark is enough. Such a spark is struck in ordinary lighter and well known to everyone. To do this, a hard stone is struck or struck with a steel bar.

Choose a fist-sized stone on the ground - silicon, granite, marble and other hard rocks will do. If the stone is smooth and has no sharp corners, split it between two other, larger ones. At a distance of a millimeter, a piece of tinder is applied to the face of the stone, after which a knife is struck along the face of the stone in the direction of the tinder. A spark falling on dry tinder will certainly cause it to smolder, you will see a faint thread of smoke. Gently, not strongly, but evenly and continuously blow on the tinder to increase the center of smoldering.

If the stone crumbles and sparks are not struck, do not despair. Choose another stone and try again. If you do not have a knife or other piece of steel, a spark can be struck by striking the face of one stone against the face 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 slowly and evenly inflate the coal. Air will pass through the tube, heating its contents, the ember will grow, and soon the birch bark and needles will flare up. Using the bundle as a large match, set fire to small dry twigs in a fire.

There are a few tips to keep in mind when it comes to saving fire. If you put a thick, rotten or, on the contrary, freshly cut log into a fire at night, the fire will burn slowly and for a long time. If you keep the red coals of the fire, sprinkled with ashes and a layer of soil on top, then it will be easier for you to get a fire in the morning. In addition, having several small fires around will warm you better than one big one.

Another way:

Building 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 onto it from a pipette or from a glass tube 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 fires

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 make fire.

With matches, you can make a fire in any conditions and in any weather. If action is expected in remote areas, stock up on a sufficient number of matches, which should always be carried 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 fire should be made on already trampled down sites or on old fires. 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. In extreme cases, an ax is used for this. In any case, all dry leaves, branches, needles, grass, can catch fire, should be removed from the fire at a distance of 1–1.5 meters.

Fire safety.

Do not build fires in areas with dry reeds, reeds, moss, or grass. They are on fire at high speed.

Don't light a fire in peat bogs. Remember that smoldering peat is very difficult to put out, even by flooding it with water. Unnoticed smoldering can easily turn into a destructive peat fire.

Kindling a fire

Kindling.

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

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

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

Lighting a fire without matches.

Before you try to start a fire without matches, prepare some dry flammable materials. Then shelter them from wind and moisture. Good substances can be rot, patches of clothing, rope or twine, dry palm leaves, wood shavings and sawdust, bird feathers, woolly villi of plants, and others. To stock up on them for the future, put 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 steel (steel plate).

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

The friction of wood on wood.

Given that friction is difficult to produce fire, use it as a last resort.

Bow and drill.

Make a resilient bow by pulling it with a cord, rope or belt. Use it to spin a dry, soft shaft through a small hole made in a dry, hard block of wood. As a result, you will get a powdery black dust, in which a spark will appear with further friction. Lift up the block and sprinkle this powder on the flammable substance (tinder).

Firewood for a fire.

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

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

For cooking, it is better to use birch and alder deadwood, which burns evenly and almost without smoke. If you need to build a large hot fire, for example, in winter with a forced overnight stay, firewood from pine, cedar and spruce dead wood will be the best.

Dry roll.

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

Hello dear readers of my security blog. This is 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 autonomy. Therefore, let's talk today about how to make fire with improvised means.

You know, I once tried to make fire by rubbing a wooden rod against wooden base. Do you know how they show it in the movies? He twisted the wand in his hands and woo a la, the fire was produced. To be honest, I was sweaty then, but I never got the fire. So how do you start a fire in the field without matches or a lighter?

Anyone can be in a situation autonomous existence. The crash of a cruise ship, a plane crash, lost tourists in the forest. The probability of survival away from civilization depends on many factors. The ability to make fire is one of the main roles here.

Very often, people get into the conditions of existence in the wild unprepared. And they have to survive using the set of items that, at first glance, does not have the necessary properties. In this article, we will look at how unusual things can be used to get fire.

Use battery to make fire

In this case, an AA battery is preferred. But, in principle, any source of energy is suitable. Even in this method, we need foil and a piece of cotton wool or cotton fabric.

We cut a strip 1 cm wide from the foil, while leaving a width of 2-3 mm in the central part of the strip. The foil should be of such length that the ends of the strip can be connected to the battery contacts. The shape of the strip after all the manipulations resembles hourglass.

Then the fabric 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 an electric current, the combustible material on the foil ignites. All that needs to be done after this is to transfer the fire to pre-prepared materials for the fire.

Getting fire with a lens

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

unusual this method lies in the fact that quite ordinary things can be used as a lens, which can be divided into 2 groups:

Here are such, 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 trifle, any thing can become irreplaceable. And after the fire is received, you can start building a temporary dwelling.

Today I have everyone who read to the end - well done. Do not forget to subscribe to blog updates so as not to miss the most interesting publications. 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 we meet again, bye bye.

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

Starting a fire using matches or a lighter is extremely simple today. But has the fire always been like this? Even 70-80 years ago, there were no lighters in most of the territory of our country, and matches were in short supply, therefore, in villages and villages, and even in cities, fires were kindled without matches.

How to make fire without matches?

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

For centuries, people have used forged flint and steel to make fires without matches. A fire starter is a small flat forged metal plate. If such a plate is struck against the sharp edge of a stone, then microscopic particles will break off from the plate - they are the very sparks from which fire was lit in ancient times. Flint, a natural mineral with very sharp edges, was used as a stone. It was about these regions that they “kresali”, “chipped” or “hewn” flint - hence the name “kresalo”, which is more ancient and more common in Russia, came from.

Sparks produced in this way fell on a special material - tinder. The tinder from the spark began to smolder, becoming hotter and hotter, and turned into an ember - a firebrand, from which dry shavings, grass, flax, moss or birch bark easily ignited. 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 start a fire without matches, you will need:
- forged steel (flint and steel),
- 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 unwind them into threads.

Divide each thread into separate fibers.

Crush the resulting fibers into a ball.

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

Then move 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 an armchair and attach it with a long working surface (blade) to that sharp edge of the flint on which you have placed tinder. We will call this position "initial". Now raise the armchair 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, descending down, comes into contact with the sharp edge of the flint, metal particles are plucked from the armchair and scatter in the form of sparks in all directions.

Sparks that fall on the tinder ignite it and it begins to smolder. Often one hit is not enough and it may take a series of 4-5 hits before you see that the spark has hit the tinder and the tinder is smoldering.

Place the smoldering tinder inside the prepared kindling lump and begin to inflate it. Make sure that the kindling tinder is always in the center of the kindling lump.