#1For this project, all you do is connect the positive and negative battery terminals with a piece of steel wool. The wool will quickly begin to heat, glow, and flame up.

#2If you’re using a 9-volt battery, just jam the top of the battery into a small pile of steel wool. Otherwise, you’ll need to make a thin “string” of steel wool to reach the top and bottom of a standard battery.

#3In order to use this technique to get a campfire going, you’ll first want to sort of bury the steel wool under your other tinder, then “spark” it with the battery. The alternative is to try handling burning steel wool, which isn’t going to be a whole lot of fun.

BATON FIREWOOD

Batoning firewood is a practice fairly well-known to bushcrafters and others who spend a fair amount of time in the forest. It can be useful when your available firewood is wet, as you’ll be splitting the wood, exposing the dry interior. It is also used to process firewood into thinner kindling, whether you need it for getting the fire going or keeping your fire small, such as when using a Brick Rocket Stove (page 38).

It is important to understand that the knife used to baton firewood needs to be robust and of good quality. A cheap knockoff from the dollar store isn’t going to cut it, no pun intended. You need a strong blade and the knife should have a full tang. This means that the metal that makes up the blade runs all the way through the handle as one continuous piece. My personal favorite knives include the GNS Scandi by L.T. Wright Knives and the Bushlore by Condor Tool and Knife. In the photos, I’m using a Becker BK9.

The length of the blade will determine the maximum thickness of the firewood you can baton. If your blade is 4 inches long, you’ll be able to baton firewood up to about 2.5 inches thick. As for firewood length, I like to stick with pieces about 3 feet long or less. That said, I’ve successfully batoned lengths of 5 feet or more, more for grins and giggles than anything else.

MATERIALS

Firewood

Knife

#1You’ll need two pieces of wood, one that you are going to baton and the other to use as your striker or hammer. That one should be about 18 inches long, and it should be strong. Thickness is a matter of preference, but you want it thin enough to hold comfortably.

#2Start by holding the firewood in one hand and the knife in the other. The bottom of the firewood should be on a firm surface, such as packed earth, a tree stump, or perhaps a flat rock. Wedge the knife blade into the end of the wood, roughly in the middle. You’ll need at least 1 to 2 inches of the blade to extend beyond the wood.

#3Hold the knife handle in one hand and firmly hammer on the knife blade with the other.

#4Once the blade bites into the wood completely, concentrate your blows on the exposed part of the blade. Slowly, you’ll drive the blade all the way through the wood, splitting it in half.

EXPEDIENT FIREWOOD STORAGE

During the aftermath of a disaster, cooking over an open fire might be your best option. If the power is out, microwave ovens and electric stoves aren’t going to be operating. Many of us have patio fire pits or similar amenities for our backyard entertaining. These also work great for heating up soup or boiling water. You might find, though, that you’ll be using a bit more fuel than usual when the fire isn’t just about ambiance. That being the case, you can cobble together this quick and easy firewood storage hack to keep the fuel within easy reach.

MATERIALS

2 full-size cinder blocks

2 (8-foot) two-by-fours

#1Place the cinder blocks side by side on a level surface.

#2Cut each of the two-by-fours in half, giving you 4 pieces, each about 4 feet long. Place the ends of the boards into the spaces in the cinder blocks, paying particular attention to the placement of the boards relative to the position of the blocks.

#3If you think of the boards as levers pulling in opposite directions, you want each set of levers to pull against each other in the same cinder block. Otherwise, you could end up with blocks rolling from the pressure.

#4Angle the boards out to the sides and begin stacking the firewood. While this setup isn’t really suited for thick, heavy wood, you could put a few larger logs at the bottom without hurting anything. Just avoid making the stack top-heavy.

#5This is a great solution for temporary stacks of firewood. It keeps the fuel off the ground and easy to grab.

FIRE KIT

The fire kit should be a part of your overall survival pack. While I recommend keeping a butane lighter and a bit of tinder in your pocket as well, the fire kit is your primary means of getting a blaze started. It need not be huge nor elaborate. Instead, it is just a collection of the tools you’ll need, all kept in one place for easy access.

A fire kit should have multiple ignition devices. Redundancy is the name of the game. Possible ignition devices include:

• Butane lighters

• Strike anywhere matches

• Ferrocerium rod and striker

• Flint and steel

MATERIALS

In this kit, I have:

Camera case, for storage

Dryer lint in a plastic bag

Char cloth in a small metal tin

Ferrocerium rod and striker

1 WetFire Cube (a commercially produced fire starter)

Magnesium shavings in a plastic bag

Butane lighter

2 tinder tabs

A handful of strike anywhere matches in an old prescription pill bottle

#1Personally, I tend to favor a ferrocerium (ferro) rod as my primary ignition device and save the others for backup. A ferro rod and a little skill will light hundreds of fires.

#2For this fire kit, I used an old camera case for the container. I picked up the camera case for about a buck at a local thrift store. Camera cases often make for excellent kit containers because not only are they cheap, they’re fairly durable. There is plenty of room in the camera case for me to add other fire starters as well. But, even with just these items, I have three different ignition devices and several different fire starters.

#3The fire kit should also include a few different ready-to-light fire starters, such as Fire Straws (page 58), Cotton Pad Fire Starters (page 57), or The Original DIY Fire Starters (page 51).

#4The container you use for your fire kit is a matter of personal choice. The size of the container will be contingent upon the size of your survival pack. In general, something the size of a camera case or smaller should suffice.

#5One last vital component of your fire kit is an empty zip-top bag. When you’re out in the field and are taking a breather from hiking, look around and see if you can locate any natural sources of tinder, such as seed pods or cattail fluff. Collect it and store it in the plastic bag. When it comes time to getting a fire going, use that instead of your DIY items or store-bought fire starters. This is all about conservation of resources. The supplies in your fire kit are obviously finite resources. If that’s all you have to use, you’ll run out eventually. Therefore, if you’re able to use natural resources instead, you’ll extend the overall lifespan of your fire kit.