And if you don't have cottonballs, Lifehacker can be used to start a toasty flame war...

upc_head

BY HOWIE AT 10:33 PM

Besides the So Cal fires, tips on fire starting don't seem as relevant when camping season is all but over for most of us.

Apparently us lowly folks in the southern hemisphere don't count? tyvm.

liamt

^^everybody's a critic.

Guys. . . just stop. you are just showing your asses. Fire is important, but too much can get out of hand. 500k Iraqis are displaced or dead since the war, but I don't hear the outrage. Darfur, Northern Ireland, poor starving children in chechnya.

How do you think the people in Afghanistan wash themselves? Answer: they don't. Where do you think the feces goes when they shit in a hole and a sandstorm kicks up? Yeah. Everywhere in your clothes and mouth. On the food that's hanging outside in the markets.

Guess what else reaches into these places? THE INTERNET. Lifehacker is not catering your personal fucking fancy.

so I say again. . . .. JUST. . .. STOP. Move the original discussion forward you bunch of whiny selfish people.

zfolwick

OK, I'll stop after this one. I don't think it takes a lot of sensitivity to see why the timing on this post wasn't great. It's a pretty big story when over half a million people are displaced.

Besides the So Cal fires, tips on fire starting don't seem as relevant when camping season is all but over for most of us.

KFTGR, starting a fire in these dry conditions to cook food is not a great idea, and it's not necessary to keep warm right now.

I will shut up now.

howie

Perhaps the people upset at the timing should cry themselves a river to put out the fires.

Also, look at it this way: if people are displaced, without their normal cooking implements, this tip could actually be of use. Oh, is this a lining of silver I see? Nope, just white out, but it's more useful than whining, no?

kftgr

It's a big world... no matter what they post, it's always going to seem like "bad timing" to someone. You can't please everyone - and on the internet you've got visitors from (literally) EVERYWHERE on the site.

Binks

To everyone discussing California:

If you missed that big ol' logo at the top, this is a lifehack blog. This post is relevant. Have a nice day.

Takkun

Bill Clark, why don't you get a grip? I made no personal attack. Why are you doing so?

Why post this now? It's not topical. Is there a reason people need to learn how to start a campfire today?

A post on emergency evacs would have been helpful and topical. I would have been just as interested on tips on how to survive a flood or hurricane around Katrina's time.

howie

Wow, amazing. Typical Californian. The whole world is all about you. Get a grip. So just because there are wildfires burning in southern CA the rest of the world can't discuss getting their campfire started? I suppose the next step will be not talking about food while there are homeless people in CA?

Bill Clark

I live in SD, and I just finished packing a bag in case I have to evacuate. And yes, this post feels a bit insensitive even though I'm sure it wasn't intended.

Maybe a post on how to pack for an emergency evac would have been just as useful and more apropos.

howie

drier lint works great for this also.

and who can forget the 9 volt and steel wool trick

nolroz

@FLEB: Okay, I didn't RTFA. It's about a campfire. Still.

FLEB

@synnik: You're overreacting. If the article was, say "Turn That Brush Pile Into a Terribly Unsafe Backyard Barbecue", you might have a point, but this really isn't relevant. I'm assuming that this is for times when the small risks of a managed fire outweigh the large risks of being lost, eaten, and/or hypothermiafied. I assure you, swath-scorching pyromaniacs-- even afficianados-- would likely have much better tools at their disposal, and little use of this technique.

FLEB

With all due respect, could you guys have waited to post this until a day when we are NOT currently experiencing the greatest loss of people's homes to fire in recent history?

(Or did the massive fires in California not get noticed by you yet?)

synnik

The cotton ball/petroleum jelly combo works really well. I usually carry several stored in a 35mm film canister when camping.

theDevilsDue

Survivorman taught us that any oil-based jelly, ointment, etc. can be used as a firestarter (and you can use any kind of dry tinder to get it going in place of a cotton ball). Of course still need a way to generate the spark...

JRae

I really do feel sympathy for those displaced by the fires in SoCal, but with all the respect for those people, they WERE living in an ecosystem that is SUPPOSED to burn itself down in a continuous cycle.

This shouldn't come as a shock anymore than building your home on the lip of an active volcano should.

But back on topic, I have been using the dryer lint rolled with vaseline stored in a film canister for a little while now when I go camping or hiking.

TendoMentis

Thanks Lifehacker! I'm going camping this weekend and this will be helpful.

As to camping season being over...it's not for me. IMO winter is the best time to camp.

Just because this hack wasn't relevant for some doesn't mean others couldn't benefit.

sean_mcgee

@liamt:
Apparently these northern hemisphere campers only camp in waqrm weather. I like it when it's cool-to-chilly. My kids like the mostly bug-free cool weather camping too. No skeeters, no gnats, no obnoxious brats.

CountSmackula

Timely post before winter. Thanks. I had just packaged this very setup, including the "Light My Fire" flint/steel pictured for my winter first aid kit for whitewater kayaking. Being able to start an emergency fire for hypothermic paddlers is a critical necessity and this setup works very well for that purpose. I used a food sealer to seal the whole thing up to keep moisture out and Vaseline in.

lausley

Dipping matches in wax is all well and good, but you should always have at least two ways of starting fire. You can never carry enough matches, and a flint will last a lot longer than even a large box of matches. This makes a flint more useful in wet weather.

You can generally get a good amount of dry tinder by shaving a stick down to its dry core with a knife, then shaving off thin ribbons of the dry wood in the middle.

And it's plenty cold in Northern Michigan for a tip like this to be relevant.

adamjaskie

another thing that could go with this is dipping strike anywhere matches (if you can find them still) in wax to keep them dry, you can scrape the wax off as you are lighting them and they stay dry even when rafting

imrcly

I'm sure there are fires burning somewhere everyday of the year. I don't think the southern california fires should preclude these topics. I'm sure I represent many here when my thoughts and prayers go out to those affected by these terrible fires.

jimmymac8088

Here's a better idea for ignition sources - the doctored cotton ball is needed to keep tinder going, but doesn't START the fire.

Skip the matches entirely - we have a much better modern alternative. Go to your favorite discount store, and stock up on disposable butane lighters. Lighters are easy to use, dry out and function even after getting wet, and are relatively durable.

I enjoy wilderness skills too, but a flint is useful mainly for entertainment and long-term survival in the wild. Carry a flint as a your back-up if you like.

For REAL save-your-can emergencies, put a couple lighters in your vehicles, at any remote cabins/campgrounds you use, etc. You are not at risk from massive explosion or anything either, your biggest worry is that they function at a moment's notice - which they do.

ROCKYLIFE

In a survival situation, you use the flint if at all possible. Save the matches (or cheap butane lighter) for when you MUST have a fire NOW, and the flint just isn't cutting it. Short-term, sure, use matches and lighters. You don't want to have to rely on a resource that is as limited as the butane in your lighter, or the number of matches you can shove in a film canister, or even the number of cotton balls and Vaseline you can carry around.

That isn't to say you shouldn't carry any of that stuff, just that you should be able to get by with a flint and a knife if you really have to. Better to be safe than sorry.

adamjaskie

"Why post this now? It's not topical. Is there a reason people need to learn how to start a campfire today?"

The article is titled "Start a Fire in the Rain" - it's very wet here in the UK at the moment, so this article is very topical...

"It's a pretty big story when over half a million people are displaced."

You're making yourself look self-important now. Half a million people is a lot of people (who I do have sympathy for), but there's 6 billion people in the world, that works out to be 0.0083% of the worlds population affected. And you expect LifeHacker to pull or hold an article for those .0083%??

As someone else pointed out, somewhere in the world is on fire EVERY day, so perhaps lifehacker should not feature any stories to do with fire for fear of offending someone? Where would that end?

lauriek