Next up on the list of the Ten Essentials to plan for when heading outdoors is: fire. Whether your car camping or heading out on a backpacking trip, a good fire provides warmth, a great place to hang out with your camp-mates, and a great way to cook everything from big meals (a big pot of chili being one of our favorites) to snacks (Smores anyone?!). And lets face it, if you are out in the wilderness, even a small fire can make the night a lot less scary. Today's post will probably be more critical for overnight backpacking trips, but its a lot of fun to practice when car camping and will impress your friends and family.

In some ways, starting a fire when your camping is no different than anywhere else, you need a source of ignition and something to burn. Its just harder to have both available to you. So, you'll need some good strategies for making sure you have something to start the fire with packed, and then be able to find the right tinder and fuel. Let's start with packing an ignition source.

Igniters

When I was younger and in the Scouts, one of my favorite things that stayed in my pack was a small, water tight, metal match container. It was a simple design, the main canister threaded up into the top which held a rubber gasket in it to seal against water. The outside was scored to provide a surface to strike the matches against. It held around 5 - 8 matches. I kept a couple of waterproof matches and a couple of Ohio Blue Tip matches (these things were amazing, truly strike anywhere matches) in it. It was also super small, so it packed easily. Obviously, this is one way to have a way to light a fire: matches or a lighter. However, there some down sides. The wind can blow them out, you can run out of them, they might break, etc. So, while they are a good, quick, method, you still might want a backup.

Another method is to have a way to throw sparks at the tinder. Two popular items right now are the Swedish Fire Steel and the Magnesium block. The Swedish Fire Stick is relatively straight forward. You forcefully run the striker down the steel shaft and it throws sparks towards your tinder. The Magnesium block is just that, a rectangular block of magnesium with a sparking insert running down one side. You use a knife to shave off a small amount of magnesium (about the size of a dime) and then throw the sparks into the magnesium pile. When the magnesium ignites, it creates a tremendous amount of heat that, while brief, does a great job of igniting your tinder. Bear Grylls uses the Swedish Fire Steel with great results. I have one of each and, personally, seem to be able to create more, and hotter, sparks with the magnesium stick. And that's not counting the addition of the magnesium.

Tinder

Next up is tinder and, here again, you have several options. There are any number of products you can purchase that act as tinder. But why pay for something that you can easily make yourself? Here are a couple of ways you can make your own fire starters at home.

1. Dryer lint is highly flammable and usually easily available. The next time your doing laundry, just scoop it out of the lint trap and shove it into a zip lock baggie. The only downside is that it burns quickly, so you should have really good tinder around it for the most effectiveness.

2. Cotton balls rolled in petroleum jelly. These are my all time favorite. They are cheap and quick and easy to make at home. Just take a cotton ball and roll it around in petroleum jelly (yep, just like the name says!). You can store these in a Ziploc baggie, or an old 35mm film canister works great too. These ignite extremely easily, give off good heat, and burn a long time, letting you get even damp tinder ignited. If I needed to get a fire going quickly, I would turn to these. Here is a video showing how it works.

3. What nature provides. While your hiking, keep an eye out for great tinder that mother nature provides. Last year in Michigan there were a number of birch trees on the island. Birch bark works great as a tinder. Be sure to peel the layers apart to be as thin as you can get, and they'll ignite quickly. Here is a video of starting a fire using the striker from a magnesium block and birch bark as the tinder.

Of course, once you have the tinder started, you'll want to be sure you have enough wood around to grow it into a fire that can sustain itself for a bit. You'll want to be sure to have wood that ranges from small and easily flammable to larger pieces that will burn longer, and everything in between. Take your time and build your way up to the larger pieces of wood or you'll risk knocking the fire out when its still small.

You can find a great range of fire starting products at here at REI.

You'll want to practice these skills before you head into any situation where you really might need them. So the next time you take your family camping and the site next to you pulls out a lighter and last Sunday's paper, feel free to pull one these tricks out of your back pocket and impress your family. Better yet, impress the rest of the folks at the camp spot next to you as well! Not only will you look impressive, you'll be practicing a great skill that you might need one day.