tried the vaseline method once and quickly moved on

Or just a zip lock bag

Fat wood is amazing and you can buy a box of it on Amazon!

Stick with? The point is that you wouldn't cannibalise your straps, belt or zip-pulls if you still had other options. Fire-cord may simply be what you hit when you're out of options and settling in for an extended survival situation. Till then, it costs you nothing ... it's your shoelaces, zip-pulls, belt, lanyard, etc. Question is, why would you have any string or cord on your gear that ISNT also a fishing line, fire-starter, snare/antenna wire, has a high breaking strain and is decomposable into strand. I mean, weight being equal, always go for maximum redundancy and flexibility. Heck, if I could find quick-dry underpants that doubled as a signalling mirror, water purifier and a mosquito repellant - I'd take it, all other things being equal : ) Everything you have should be multi-use where possible. And an enhanced-utility paracord really isn't subject to an either/or decision as it's simply a drop-in replacement for your existing cords and lacings. It doesn't have to be better than a zippo or a ferro... it just has to be better than the string it replaces ; ) and, it undoubtedly is.

4 directions bushcraft the BEST ferro rods and strikers!

Got it

Glad to have ya back! Yeah those Zips are awesome. It would be nice if they packaged them in half the size. You're right that is all you really need in most cases.

You had me at Fire is Awesome!

Fire, how do I start thee... let me count the ways... Zippo... matches... ferro rod... flint... _(an hour later)_ ... cut the oxide layer from elemental Na or K and expose it to water ... dripping glycerol onto potassium permanganate... shorting a bubblegum wrapper or the metalic strip of a banknote over a battery... polishing the dimpled base of a soda can with toothpaste to a focusing mirror... _(another hour later)_ ... use friction to ignite citrus oils from a hollowed orange... use a half-grape in a microwave to send a hot plasma upwards into a tinderpile... _(another hour)_ ... find a live volcano and poke it with a long stick... emm... find a high place and wait for a lightening strike... ummmm... ... okay, I think I'm done! Oh, no... wait...

put your hands in a bucket of ice cold water for a good while, then try to open a tampon. Also, I found tampons suprisingly hard to ignite in extreme conditions. My solution was to prepare my fire starting kit for survival situations, including pre-open tampons and mix them with an accelerator (huge difference). While out deeper in the wild, always have several different types of tinders and several differnt types of ignitors. A misstake to rely on one type in my experience.

Serious question...you fall in the creek...you are rapidly becoming hypothermic. ...how do you get a roaring fire in 5 minutes? Something you can pull out with a half hour good burn immediately so you have timd to get wood?

Amen...good thin bark and it ignites easily using my dryer lint and hand sanitizer 😎

quercus , the flint on a bic lighter gets crumbly after exposure to water, or even just very high humidity for an extended period. You might get a few lights out of it before it completely falls apart, might not.

Yep a good ol campfire is better than anything on TV

I've been meaning to try that, thanks for the reminder.

Central Oregon Survival Network it just came out

Sweet, I was wondering, because I stay pretty close to new gear... Right on

I assume the same goes for that Zip, and stuff like Esbit or trioxane. Try doing a follow up video, where you perforate several Zip and/or Wetfire and see if they’ll ignite after a day, then a week, then two weeks, then try a month. I am not sure how long until they become useless (the fuel evaporates)... but they do.

I haven't tried that yet. Might have to test it in a video.

Hi, No it is not :) Burns the same good but hmmm it smelly. You have hold your eyes to don't let them run away. You can smell it for a mile.

The birch trees shed that bark, in the summertime it is on the ground around them or else find a branch that has fallen. No need to harm the tree if they are protected.

I don't like the magnesium blocks because it takes so much time to scrape off enough to be useful that I could already have the fire going with something else.

Don't get me wrong, I have 2 of those magnesium block/ferro rod fire starters and I have used them. They're just nowhere near my top 10 list.

Fair enough :)

What about magnesium powder?

Yeah I finally got a new mic so my voice doesn't come across quite so high pitched on camera now

It’s fake, tests were done in Australia on a major company selling hand sanitizers and were found in some cases to be only 17% alcohol. They were fined A$360,000

They do work. Mine do anyway

Any one of the items would work on its own, he's just sharing various brands or starters and various tinders. Truly a guy should know how to start a fire with nothing but his bare hands and what is around him but it is far easier to have one of these very lightweight easy to start items.

We have to start somewhere, most of us didn't spring from our mother's womb as a fire building expert like yourself.