How to Build a Basic Fire Kit

hey folks will here again with happily ever outdoors so in this video we're gonna talk about how to build a fire kit that you can count on to never leave you out in the cold so keep watching so what exactly is a fire kit well quite simply it is the basic items that you'll need to get a fire started now of course there's going to be a lot of debate over what exactly should go into a fire kit but it really comes down to three key components number one is going to be your ignition source or sources that's gonna be what gives you that first spark or flame to get things going number two is going to be your tinder those are gonna be these small pieces of flammable material that you use to build your fire off of and number three is going to be the container or containers that you use to hold the items in your kit we're gonna take a look at a basic fire kit that I put together now before we look at the kit as a whole we're gonna talk about the three key components that I mentioned with number one being your ignition source or sources I also think this is a really good point to mention the key principle of redundancy redundant means either a repetition or a duplicate and in the outdoors especially when it comes to like survival gear and things of that nature redundancy is important so that if you lose one item in your kit or one fails break something like that you have an alternate you can see right here this is going to be my primary Ferro rod this is a Ferro rod from titan survival it's a good oversized Ferro rod we also have a magnesium block fire starter not one of my personal favorites but these will work that does have a striking surface right there as well as the magnesium which you can shave off to help start a fire and that also gives me an extra striker if I need of course I also have a good old-fashioned disposable bic lighter and there is no shame in carrying one of these in fact it's just plain smart to have one if I'm ever in a situation where my tenders not the best the conditions aren't the best I might be able to get a fire started with this lighter that I couldn't get started with anything else a quick note with disposable lighters if you're storing them in your kit for a long period of time you're gonna want to check on them occasionally because these will actually gas out and they'll lose the feel inside of them just from sitting around it'll evaporate out now of course in order to effectively use the rods or magnesium blocks and to make a lot of good natural tenders like bark scrapings you're gonna need a good hard scraping surface right here we have a really sturdy like overbuilt Ferro rod striker from four directions bushcraft got really nice hard steel striking surface right there an Osage orange handle this is a really really good striker this is again a really good primary go-to tool we also have a small scraper that's here on our magnesium block in case we were to lose this one and I've also included a small knife in this kit now this is a Mora eldress it doesn't necessarily have to be this knife but this is a good knife for a smaller kit like this because it's a fixed blade but it will fit inside of a compact kit you could also go with a small folding knife that would work just fine it doesn't have to be an expensive knife but you just never know I always carry a primary knife with me I don't go in the woods without a larger knife it just doesn't happen but you never know what could happen given the fact that a good cutting tool is such an important part of being able to make tinder and just fire making general out of the woods I wouldn't go out without an extra one in my fire kit by the way the particular knife I've chosen also has a hard 90 degree spine on it so I could use this to strike a pharaoh or to make fine scrapings and shavings well of course this is by no means an exhaustive list of all the ignition sources out there so if there's something else that you guys particularly love to use to get that initial spark or flame feel free to tell us in the comments below so moving on let's talk a little bit about tinder now again what tinder is is basically dry flammable material that's going to give you that little bit of a sustainable burn after you get that initial spark or flame so that you can use other natural tenders and small kindling that you find in your surrounding area one that I am particularly fond of is fat wood this comes from pine trees and its really pre-eminent kind of in the southeastern United States you see this a lot but what this really is is resin dense pine wood it's completely saturated with pine sap so this is gonna be highly flammable and it's got a really long sustained burn because if once it starts burning which it takes a spark very easily all of that resin starts to kind of fuse out of it and it just continues to burn and it's a natural material which is great too essentially in order to use this all you're gonna have to do is take your scraper or maybe the back of your knife and you can use that to make very fine shavings which will take a spark very easily you can also cut it into smaller strips or even break it down into chunks it's waterproof and it will actually ignite even if it's way next we've got a couple different things kind of bundled up together because I had them in a baggie together cotton balls which is something that everybody has around their house right it's really really easy to get a spark to take on these you can pull them apart like that and kind of fluff them up and they'll spark really easily now just like this they don't really have a very long burn it's pretty fast and they'll go out some people like to soak cotton balls in petroleum jelly and that works really well too that's awesome I particularly liked Kari just because of them but it does work well and it's something that's really cheap and it's really easy you can make from home dry your lens this is just the lint that I pulled out a filter in my dryer this is the stuff off your clothes and this will actually take a flame pretty well too again not a real long burn but as long as you keep this dry it'll take a spark very easily something that's a little more natural that I find around the area where I live is cattail fluff in the same way much like the dryer lint and the cotton it'll take a spark really really easily it won't burn very long but it will take a really easy spark it's very important though especially with this that you keep it completely dry or it will not work and one downside to the cattail fluff as you can imagine is that it's it's messy so you got to keep it contained as soon as you pull it apart those little fibers will try to blow away just like you know they were designed to do right out in the wild one other thing I have here this is basically just some heavy weight paper this was a packing material I got in a few different packages maybe you've seen this before and this is something it's not really going to take a spark easily if you have a lighter you can definitely get that to ignite no problem but it does work well if you're using a Ferro rod you can get a spark going with one of these other materials and then that's something else you can kind of throw on there as long as you have everything else kind of staged and ready to build your fire it'll give you a little bit of initial burst of heat not a very long bird but it'll take very easily lastly not necessarily something I would recommend using all the time just because it does put out some pretty noxious fumes I've got a little bit of duct tape here that I wrapped around any wooden dowel I could peel this off and what works real well is you can kind of use it to make a little nest for your tinder put the tinder inside there and then spark that and this will actually get a really good burn if you believe it or not so duct tape really does fix everything so duct tape will give you a little bit longer kind of us when you're using in conjunction with other tenders but again I would really only use this for emergencies because it does put out some pretty nasty black smoke that I'm sure is full of all kinds of chemicals that you don't want to be breathing alright guys we're gonna talk about the last key component which is going to be your container or containers now of course the first container you have is going to be the actual powder bag or whatever that holds your whole fire kit together it could be a tactical style pouch like this or it could be maybe a more traditional leather or canvas pouch or bag or perhaps it could be some kind of a waterproof container I mean it could be a waterproof Tupperware for that matter depending on what your particular application was but the key things to consider are number one it's got to be something that's sturdy it's got to hold up well you want to be easy for you to pack and the particular kit that you're gonna be taking and you'll probably want it to have some kind of organizational features inside just so your stuffs not all just kind of thrown in and mix together and tough to dig through because that could certainly create problems for you let's say you're trying to get fire going and your hands were particularly cold or maybe it was already dark outside or maybe you're doing it in the rain and you don't want to have your kit all pulled out and everything getting all wet for a long time so you want to be able to keep it organized so you know what is wet now this particular pouch that we're looking at right here is the 3v gear sidekick utility pouch this is a pouch i've actually purchased for a couple different things i had got one in one of my subscription boxes and i really liked it so i've actually ordered a couple since then because it's just it's a good size it's big enough without being too big works for a lot of different things and then it's got some really really good organizational features on the inside you can also see it has the molly attachments on the front as well as the straps on the back so if you were putting this onto a tactical backpack or a vest or even just your regular pack you can attach it quite easily it has really sturdy double zippers which I like and it also has a drain hole on the bottom okay any water were to get inside of this by the way this is a water-resistant pouch really but not waterproof so depending on where you're taking your fire kick you might want to consider a waterproof pouch or something like this I would either put it inside of a waterproof bag or put it inside of a ziplock bag inside my pack so I knew that this stuff would not get wet okay now why don't we go ahead and open this up and take a look inside so you can see as soon as you open up this pouch we've got a lot of organization going on here it has these nice loops on this side so you can keep all your items sorted and there's room here I was able to put my little tinder kit in here you didn't see this case yet but we're talking about containers now you can find good little cases like this there's plenty of places you can order one law but this particular one here is just two pieces that snap together there's no hinge so I put a rubber band around it and doesn't have a rubber seal on it to make it waterproof so I always keep it inside a a little ziplock bag that I came across this was just I don't even remember where I got it it was some kind of packaging for something so whenever you see stuff like that when you buy a new piece of gear think about what you might be able to use it for and hold on to it but I also threw my bic lighter inside there because you may or may not know that but bic lighter gets wet gets submerged in water it's not gonna work it'll ruin the fuel inside there now this pouch also has a bigger little slot right there and you can see inside here I just got my magnesium block fire starter in there because there's not a good spot for it over here and then all my extra tinder I keep in a ziploc bag so I have this smaller little container which is kind of my go-to that I work out of and then I also have this ziploc bag to keep some extra stuff in there even if you don't carry a lot of extra tinder in your fire kit carry a gallon ziplock bag this is something I don't really see people talk about at all when it comes to fire kit think about it if you're out somewhere and it's wet and you're taking all that time and you're going around and you're trying to find dry tinder let's say you were on a hiking trip in your loss and you've been out there for days and you've used all the tinder that you had with you you collect that dry stuff well now if you need a means to keep it dry Ziploc bag doesn't take probably any space in your kit whatsoever something as simple as this can make a huge difference in an emergency situation this is just one example of a basic fire kit you may want to go smaller than this in that case you might reduce your redundancies a little bit you might not carry as many fire starters as much tinder or you might decide to go bigger than this of course if you do want to build a kit that's really similar to this I'll include links to as much of the gear as I can in the description below so you can check it out for yourself but the important thing is to remember those three key components your ignition source or sources butI your tinder but Boothroyd your container or containers to hold it all together alright folks I hope that this tutorial on how to build a fire kit was helpful to you in the future we may go more in depth with specific videos on how to select tender how to find it out in the woods how to pick the best fire starters all that good stuff as always if you have any questions about the content we've covered in this video feel free to drop that in the comments below so we can get back to you also if you've got any tips or tricks of your own that you want to share we'd love to hear from you as well if you enjoyed this video do us a favor and give it a thumbs up and if you're not subscribed to our channel already I hope you'll consider doing so today so you keep seeing more videos like this until next time and stay happy and stay outdoors [Music]

Channel: Happily Ever Outdoors

Views: 17,723

Rating: 4.8562369 out of 5

Keywords: how to build a basic fire kit, how to build a fire kit, camping, best firekit, firemaking kit, firestarting kit, fire starting kit, fire kit tutorial, fire starting kit tutorial, fire making kit tutorial, fire kit, best fire kit, firekit, survival, bushcraft, survival kit, survival gear, make your own survival kit, DIY fire kit, DIY survival kit, basic fire kit, altoids tin survival kits, bushcraft fire kit, how to build a simple firekit, outdoor survival fire kit

Id: OqOo6SeBz4M

Length: 14min 18sec (858 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 15 2018