How to Light a Fire With Flint & Steel

Fire
Small metal box with lid
Nail
Hammer
100% cotton cloth
Scissors
Tongs
Char cloth
Tinder
Flint
Steel
Kindling wood
Firewood

Things You'll Need

  • If you spend much time in the woods hunting, camping, fishing or hiking, knowing how to light a fire with flint and steel can be useful in emergencies. During natural disasters matches and lighters may get wet, so flint and steel are useful as they dry quickly. You can light a fire with just flint and steel, but a little preparation ahead of time to produce char cloth will make the process much easier and quicker when the time comes.
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Instructions

  1. Making Char Cloth

    • 1

      Build a fire and let it die down until a bed of hot coals remains.

    • 2

      Take a small metal box with a lid (like a mint box) and use a hammer and nail to punch a hole in the middle of the lid.

    • 3

      Cut several 2-in. X 2-in. squares of 100 percent nontreated cotton cloth, place them in the metal box and close the lid.

    • 4

      Place the metal box full of cotton cloth squares into the hot coals. The cloth should start smoking. Watch carefully and remove the box with tongs immediately after it stops smoking.

    Lighting a Fire

    • 5

      Prepare tinder from any dry natural vegetable fiber such as weeds, hemp, sisal, cotton, linen or jute. Mix two types together if possible by first shredding the fibers, then forming a wad about the size of your fist. Place the tinder in your fire pit and lay a piece of char cloth on top of it.

    • 6

      Hold the steel in your non-dominant hand closely over the tinder.

    • 7

      Strike the flint down the steel at an angle using short, choppy strokes to produce sparks off the steel.
      Repeat until a spark catches on the char cloth.

    • 8

      Lay down the flint and steel and cup your hands around the burning ember formed by the char cloth on the tinder. Blow carefully on the burning ember until the tinder catches.

    • 9

      Slowly feed the flame with small pieces of kindling. Add larger pieces of firewood as the fire grows stronger and larger.