Lighting one up
The darnedest tools can help create fire in the wild
By Joanna Beresford 08/13/2009
Once you realize the importance of fire, you’ll want to make sure that you carry devices for making one with you at all times.
Since matches and butane lighters can quickly be used up, or can be lost, it is important to learn some so-called primitive methods of fire-starting, including any number of ways to make fire with whatever you can find in the woods, including the hand drill, the bow and drill, the plow, the thong and the saw.
There are countless variations on the basic fire-starting methods of chemical reactions, friction and focusing of sunlight to a point. I was a bit skeptical when I heard about a new method of fire-making using the bottom of an aluminum beer or soda can, but it actually works. The very bottom is not a true parabolic dish, but when highly polished it can be used to focus the sun’s rays to a point and ignite tinder.
Because the bottoms of aluminum cans are not polished, you need to give yours a high sheen in order for it to sufficiently reflect the sun’s rays. This is easiest done with some fine steel wool. You will need to polish the bottom for about 15 to 20 minutes —until you have a bright and highly reflective surface. How do you know you are done? Simple. You test it.
Artist and experimenter Eric Zammit of Altadena discovered that he could quickly get a hot coal from a bit of mugwort if he had polished the bottom of the can with the finest steel wool for about 10 minutes.
Collect your tinder and roll it into the size of a cigarette. In fact, a cigarette would make good tinder. Like Zammit, I prefer a rolled-up piece of dried mugwort, a common wild plant found along waterways. Mugwort was used in the old days by Southern California Native Americans when they wanted to transport a coal or an ember. You can also use dried bark, various leaves, moss — anything that is dry and holds together well when rolled into a small shape.
Point the bottom of the can toward the sun then move your tinder into the bottom area, watching for the place where the light comes to a point. When you find that spot, keep your tinder there until you get your coal started. This is akin to making a fire with a magnifying glass, only you are not focusing the light through the lens, but back up to a single point.
Zammit found that he could fairly easily ignite mugwort using this method, as long as the bottom of the can was shiny enough, and as long as it was close to midday, when the sun is directly overhead. But while he was able to ignite mugwort and leaves as well, he could not burn paper.
Zammit had the best results by holding the can in his hands and propping his elbows on his knees. Then he aligned the can with the sun by watching the can’s shadow until the shadow corresponded roughly with the diameter of the can — no larger.
“By holding the can at eye level, I could look under the mugwort to find the focal point of the light and put it right on the tip of the mugwort,” said Zammit.
With practice and the right polishing medium, you’ll have another fire-starting method that could one day save your life.
“Wow — this is cool. It really works! I was amazed at how fast this produced a coal,” Zammit said.
Christopher Nyerges is the editor of Wilderness Way magazine, the author of "How to Survive Anywhere," and an occasional blogger of current events. He can be contacted through this paper or at ChristopherNyerges.com.
DIGG | del.icio.us | REDDIT