I am disappointed and underwhelmed by the flamability of your common hand sterilizing alcohol gel. It burns, but not really intense nor impressive. I was unable to lit it with a spark at room temperature. I think it's 70% alcohol or so, my bottle doesn't list it. For this stuff to really BURN I guess you have to heat it so more volatile alcohol fumes are released.

I tried smearing it on cotton balls to see if that was an improvement. It was - but you all know how the cotton ball catches a spark and ignites like crazy. Nothing revolutionary there. Alcohol gel cotton balls are much inferior to petroleum jelly cotton balls.

So - nothing impressive in terms of alcohol gel. Having heard the urban legend about the guy who managed to set his own hands on fire after using alcohol gel I really expected it to be a bit more volatile. Nope. So the H1N1-virus aftermath does little good in providing good fire starters everywhere

I guess it still is an option if nothing else is available. Keep that "else" option available, that's what I say.