THE 50 MIN FIRESTARTER


Bart Jordan, May 18, 2020

If you can’t get your fire started with 50 mins of flame you are in a lot of trouble. This fire starter is cheap, easy to make and can burn for ~ 50 mins all for a couple pennies and adds less than 1 oz to your load.

Supplies

  • Paper Egg carton (Only need the bottom/segmented side)

  • Paraffin or Bees Wax (canning section of grocery store)

  • Saw dust (Untreated Lumber) or small animal bedding (chipped pine)

  • Aluminum foil

  1. Fill the egg slots with saw dust/wood chips

  2. FIll the cups with paraffin (until you can see the wax through the chips

  3. After it has cooled and solidified cut up along individual segments

  4. wrap in aluminum foil

The real secret sauce if this whole thing is the aluminum foil that prevents the wax from escaping into the ground. The following time lapse video is shot with two fire starters of equal weight. The only difference being the aluminum foil. The plain fire starter lasts for ~15 mins and the aluminum wrapped one lasted for ~ 50 mins.

Note: For long term storage I would suggest using paraffin rather than bees wax as bees wax will attract mice. I would assume that it will attract bears as well.