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Paper, rags, cardboard, the list of materials you can light with a flame is many and varied making it the first choice for most all folks needing a quick fire. Hold that flame on there long enough and something is going to burn. Grasses, leaves, small twigs, even some that are slightly damp can usually be coaxed into fire with a sustainable flame. If you have a source of heat like a Butane lighter or candle that can provide steady heat to your fuel there’s a wide and usually readily choice of tinder available. Let’s continue by talking about the best tinder to use with a flame. Likewise, and here’s where it gets confusing for many, a tinder that works great with an ember, will not work with a Fire Steel. A tinder that works great with a Fire Steel may not work at all with a ember. There is no one tinder that works for all three of our selected heat sources. The key word here, of course is “correct” tinder. For this discussion, tinder, will be what we use to turn our heat source into fire. The first edition of Noah Webster’s Dictionary published in 1806 ( and no – I wasn’t around then) defined tinder as: “Tin’der, n, burnt linen, what easily catches fire.) Times are changing. ( Wikipedia lists over a dozen definitions for tinder but none of them pertains to fire building. The next part of the equation is our fuel or the more common term used for the fire building process – tinder. So there we have our three most common methods of ignition, or the source of heat that we use to start our fire - flame, sparks and ember. The Bow Drill and the Hand Drill being the two most obvious and the most practiced. An ember used for fire building is most commonly produced by a friction method. Now to the third, and most difficult method of making fire. Take note - these sparks are no where near as hot as those from a magnesium rod. when struck by a high carbon piece of steel, produces some very nice sparks. A good combination of flint or flint-like rock: jasper, chert etc. That other common source of sparks and the method favored by many mountaineering and early history buffs and practitioners is flint and steel. Fire Steels can be used in any weather, even wet and are the favorite of many survival experts, hunters, campers and the military. Just move a metal blade slowly down the length of the magnesium rod and you can throw a shower of sparks onto your tinder. These babies generate very hot sparks, somewhere around 5000 degrees and with the correct tender ( fuel) it’s easy to get a fire growing- first try. Fire steels are a very popular means to generate sparks and many consider carrying one an essential survival item. The next source of heat to be considered are sparks. The flame can be supplied by many methods with a match, cigarette lighter or candle being the most practical. The best choice, and by this I mean the one that’s the easiest to start a fire with, is a flame. We’ll start from the easiest to hardest – flame, spark and then ember. We’ll get to a discussion about tinder soon but first let’s talk about our heat source. How we apply heat whether it be flame, sparks or ember, also dictates what the third essential ingredient will be, that is the fuel. Now we’re getting down to the nitty gritty, the practical, controllable elements and the part where decisions can be made. Get enough heat built up and you’ll have fire. First it provides much need oxygen, force feeding it essentially, which in turn produces the next of the 3 essentials : heat. The common solution, and a very good one, is to get down and blow life back into the fire. Time and time again I’ve watched as students (and even experienced “old hands”) fire building attempts failed, their fire just slowly dying out, simply due to lack of oxygen. It simply can’t get enough oxygen to burn. If you repeat this process, light the match then place it down on a flat surface, what will happen? The match will go out. The match will burn until it’s totally consumed. One way to demonstrate this is by lighting a match, holding it in a horizontal position and let it burn. oxygen, can circulate through and be drawn into the fire. A tightly packed fire lay, let’s use the familiar tipi tyle as an example, will not burn as readily as one that is a little loosely build so that air, i.e. Oxygen, of course, we have all around us yet few pay enough attention to this key ingredient when they build their fire lay or tinder bundle. Lets take those three requirements just a little farther, separate them and then discuss how each must be addressed. Those are, without a doubt, things that must be considered by everyone attempting to build a fire. Most all of us where taught that the primary requirements for fire were oxygen, heat and fuel.