Help! - Fire Lighting Demo

[Jackal 211]

Folks,

In my infinite wisdom I have volunteered to do a fire lighting demo at a lads weekend away at the end of June. There will be about 10 of us and I want to show them various ways of fire-lighting. Has anyone done this before, good / bad experiences, what works? what to avoid etc... would be really helpful. I thought I'd start with the fire triangle and then move onto methods etc... Does anyone have a list of the different methods?

Cheers

Steve

 

[andy_e]

stick to what you can do ... nothing worse that trying something for the first time in front of an audience, unless you treat it as a "here's the theory, now let's all have a go" weekend.

 

[JohnC]

I did one for cubs/scouts, that stared with lighting matches, lighters, then we used fire wire wool and 9v battery, cotton wool and firesteel, cotton wool + vaseline with firesteel, birchbark, very fine woodshavings, and finally had a go at bowdrill. The idea was to show pitfalls of matches ( I had some damp matches in one box) and lighters (one empty/no flint) and some techniques in using them, then look at a couple of alternatives to create a flame. The tinder was starting with processed stuff, then looking at "natural"
The bowdrill went down well, but the wire wool and battery was a big hit.
I didnt have a proper flint and steel at the time, but that would have been good to try.

 

[HeltorChasca]

Hi Steve,

Not sure if this link helps: Best of luck. You will be fine. If they are mates, they'll want you to well. (Mine would be doing their best to stitch me up. Heh heh)

http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=45513&highlight=

 

[some like it cold]

we had a firelighting demonstration on the survival training bit of a charity expedition and the poor man really struggled getting things going with a lot of the ways he was showing us, whoops, talking later he was very experienced and showed us a variety from all natural through to things you find in cars. Moral of the story prepare very well and limit it to a few things that are most appropriate and guarantee success

 

[SimonM]

As well as the fire triangle, I always teach first aid for burns...and have a bucket of cold water nearby!

Also, make sure you have enough dry tinder to ensure success for everybody. On the subject of tinders:

• Pet bedding isn't as dry as you think - dry it in the sun before you need it.
• Plumbers hemp makes excellent tinder as does jute gardening twine - just cut into short lengths and tease apart the strands.

Simon

 

[Survival Sense]

Been there, done that a lot. I'm the wilderness survival training coordinator for the Boy Scouts Fremont District in Oregon. Here's some information that might be useful to you from my website: http://survivalcommonsense.com/2010/01/18/best-ignitionfeed/. I also posted a thread a few minutes ago about using dryer lint as a firestarter. If you have any questions or need any more firemaking information, email me at: Lpantenburg@bendbroadband.com. Good luck!

 

[MikeE]

I teach on an advanced fire lighting course for the NT here in Essex. Even when you do use well practised methods it doesn't always work. We demonstrate the best ways to use matches (finger on back of head), how to split a match (wood or paper), use of lighters, use of firesteel and striker, use of flint and steel (my personal favourite and most reliable!), firebow, fire piston (not yet got that to work). We teach different fire lays too. Let me know your email by PM and I'll send you the aide memoire we hand out!

 

[ged]

... email me at: EMAIL DELETED. Good luck!

On a survival note, it's generally a very bad idea to put your email address in a public forum.

Spammers will harvest it, and sell it to the scum of the planet.

 

[brancho]

Practice anything you wish to demo in advance is the advice I always give.