A thermite fire-starter offered by DBC Pyrotechnics of Portland, Ore., provides a 30-second burst of flame at 4,500 degrees, enough to "ignite a fire in three feet of snow or pouring rain," according to the company. TOM BAUER/Missoulian

Reporter's tried, true methods for sparking flames

By JOE NICKELL
of the Missoulian

I was in trouble before I even realized I was getting cold. It was opening day of hunting season, and I had spent the early morning hours hiking through snow high up a mountain ridge, intent on reaching a saddle where I'd often seen elk passing through on the way between their evening feeding area and daylight beds.

Having gotten a rather late start, I had pushed hard up the mountain, sweating in my light camouflage jacket. The weather report hadn't told me to expect such low temperatures, but my pounding heart as I hiked kept me plenty warm. I didn't even bother taking my gloves out of my backpack.
Arriving at my intended destination, I stopped on a rocky outcropping and slowly scanned the woods ahead with my binoculars.

Through the trees, I could see perhaps 200 yards along the saddle and partway down both sides of the ridge. My mind bent outward, analyzing every spot of brown. My breath calmed.

Suddenly, I realized that my bare hands had become very cold. I suffer from a condition called Reynaud's Syndrome, which basically means that my body sometimes overreacts to cold, shutting down circulation to my extremities, as it would normally do in cases of near-death hypothermia. Usually when this happens to me, I can sense it's coming and find ways to warm my hands. But on this day, by the time I noticed my fingers were cold, they were already starting to turn white as the blood drained from them.

I dropped my backpack and began pulling out my extra warm clothes and gloves. It was too late. My hands were already frozen stiff. I began to involuntarily shiver.

Abandoning all thought of elk, I began breaking dry branches from the trees around me, building a small tangle of kindling on the snow. I again opened my pack, and pulled out one of the tiny Bic lighters that I typically carried with me in the woods.

But my fingers wouldn't grip the lighter – much less override the child-proof feature. Only after long minutes of fruitless fumbling did I manage to light the lighter, by wedging it between my wrist and my chest with one hand, lighting it with the thumb of my other hand.

Twenty minutes later, a roaring fire at my feet, I shook my head.

"Joe, you idiot," I chastised myself out loud. "You of all people should be better prepared than this."

That scare last autumn was the worst attack of Reynaud's that I've experienced, but 'm hardly alone in my vulnerability to Montana's cold. Five percent of adult men and 8 percent of women suffer from Reynaud's Syndrome, according to the Framingham Heart Study, a long-term cardiovascular survey conducted ever since 1948 in Framingham, Mass.

But even those who don't suffer from Reynaud's can easily find themselves in need of warmth, and fast: An accidental slip into an icy creek can quickly cause potentially fatal hypothermia in even the most "warm-blooded" outdoorsman.

So when I returned to civilization that night, I resolved not to head back into the woods until I had equipped myself with a foolproof fire-starting kit.
But what to include in that kit? Surfing the Internet over the course of several evenings, I found myself adrift in a dizzying sea of advice, much of it driven by principles other than those that motivated me. Some hardcore outdoorsmen swore by the classic flint and steel as the only foolproof fire-starter. I read long treatises on the even more labor-intensive techniques involved in using a traditional friction bow. The more pyromaniacally inclined engaged in games of explosive one-upmanship – discussing the merits of signal flares, white gas and the like – on chat forums where actual hikers and active outdoorspeople seemed conspicuously absent.

Despite the dead-ends and questionable advice, the exercise helped me narrow my focus. What I sought was a compact, lightweight igniter and tinder kit – something that would allow me to start a fire in snow and possibly rain, possibly in wind, possibly with wood that wasn't bone-dry. Oh, and it needed to require little dexterity, in case my fingers were frozen.
The problem is, many options exist that cover some of those bases, but very few cover them all. Roadside signal flares, for example, burn very hot and plenty long enough to start a fire; but they're bulky, and the chemicals involved are pretty nasty. Liquid fuels and gases take up a lot of space, and if they leak, your pack is basically ruined.

A guy by the name of Herman Jansen of Damiansville, Ill., has received a U.S. patent for a "portable, fused essentially waterproof campfire ... entirely surrounded by a clear combustible material such as shrink wrap and a handle is attached," but I couldn't find a commercially available version, much less imagine fitting one into in my backpack.

One oddball option, however, did catch my attention: a thermite fire-starter offered by DBC Pyrotechnics of Portland, Ore. Very small and reasonably light at just 3 ounces, the canisters of thermite (a blend of metal powder and metal oxide) allegedly provided a 30-second burst of flame burning at 4,500 degrees, enough to "ignite a fire in three feet of snow or pouring rain," according to the company.
I called owner Rian Smith to chat about his invention. He said he came upon the inspiration after watching workers weld railroad tracks near his house using thermite.

"The problem," said Smith, "was how to start it; nobody seemed to know how to light it without using a torch. So I put my research and development guy on it, and he figured it out. ... When he sent it back to me and I lit the fuse on the first one, I just about had kittens. It seriously works, and it has proven to be reliable. It's not cheap, but if you're in the middle of winter and you've got wet timber, it's a guarantee."

Indeed, it's not cheap: $8.95 for the one-time-use fire-starters. Nevertheless, I ordered four.

I then took a run around Missoula's outdoor equipment stores, where I picked up an array of fire-starting products, from a $2.89 box of waterproof matches, to a $39.95 Brunton windproof butane lighter. I also grabbed a number of commercially available tinders, including sticks made of wax and sawdust, a tube of so-called fire paste, and cubes of WetFire Tinder.

Over the course of the hunting season, I tested the various products. As I suspected, some of the traditional techniques fell short of my self-established standards. Shaved magnesium produced an intense burst of fire when ignited with a flint-and-steel spark, but the shaving process was time-consuming, the flint and steel required more dexterity than my frozen fingers might offer and the burst of heat wasn't long-lasting. If the actual organic tinder wasn't fairly dry and very carefully positioned in relation to the magnesium shavings, it wouldn't ignite – and the whole shaving process would have to be repeated.
The flint and steel had even more trouble igniting the WetFire Tinder cubes, as well as the Waterproof Tinder Cubes marketed by Coughlan.

A company called Ultimate Survival Technologies offers a flint-and-steel fire-starter called the Little Sparkie, which it says "can be operated with one hand and start your fire even in the most adverse weather conditions." But Little Sparkie mostly just produced a few sparks; it took precious minutes (and some dexterity) to ignite synthetic tinders, and I never did manage to get it to ignite even the driest organic tinder.

Waterproof matches proved much more reliable and required less dexterity to produce an initial flame that would light organic tinder, tinder cubes or fire paste. Even better – though undoubtedly bulkier – are Coughlan's Fire Lighters, which are basically a tinder stick with an enormous match head on one end. Though hardly windproof, the sticks consistently lit fires in snowy conditions without much hassle.

Some people swear by high-end butane lighters like Brunton's Firestorm Lighter; other people swear at them. If you believe the marketing, these small, lightweight lighters produce a flame that's so hot, you often can't even see it – even in winds up to 80 mph. Another bonus, for me: The larger controls and lack of childproofing make it easy to use. The downside: They're fickle, particularly in cold temperatures and at high altitudes – precisely the conditions where I most often hunt. At 40 bucks, the Firestorm isn't cheap (and other models are even pricier); ultimately, while I'll keep it in my pack, I'll never go without a backup source of flame.

As to commercially available tinders, I found that the WetFire Tinder and Coughlan's Waterproof Tinder Cubes burned about equally long (several minutes)?at about the same (low) intensity. Both also claim to burn in rain; the WetFire Tinder even burns while floating in water. Of the two, the WetFire Tinder cubes were far easier to use; the Waterproof Tinder Cubes required working them between your fingers first. Coughlan's Fire Paste worked somewhat better; when applied liberally, it even managed to ignite medium-sized sticks without the need for other tinder. But the bulky metal tube was a drawback. All of those products were vulnerable to being extinguished by a moderate wind, but they weathered better, generally, than organic tinder.

Predictably, the thermite fire-starters stood in a class by themselves. Equipped with a short fuse and contained within a lidded plastic canister (which you must burn, alas), the fire-starter fit easily in my small emergency kit. The product actually flips fire-starting upside down: Smith recommends setting the canister atop (rather than underneath) the organic material you intend to light, because the thermite reaction produces white-hot molten iron that will flow down and ignite anything beneath it.

The first time I used one, I simply placed it atop a large, snow-covered log, lit the fuse and stepped back. The intense heat ignited the dense log within seconds. The second time I used one, it fell off the log as it was igniting. The molten iron burned a hole approximately 5 inches deep into the soil. As with gas-fired welding torches, you shouldn't look at these things while they're burning, lest you burn your retina.

In the end, I found myself with a much more reliable – and scarcely bulkier – fire-starting kit in my pack: a couple of Coughlan Fire Lighter sticks, a handful of WetFire Tinder cubes, the Brunton lighter, and – for extreme situations – one thermite fire-starter.

None of those, of course, replace the obvious advice to dress warmly (and wear my dang gloves) in the first place. But I feel much safer now, knowing that a warm campfire is only moments away, no matter the conditions.

Reporter Joe Nickell can be reached at 523-5358, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or on NickellBag.com.