Originally Posted By: ireckon
I have never generated a flame by using only a fire steel and all natural materials. It is a humbling reality check.



You are right. Starting a fire with a steel in good conditions is not always as easy as it looks. Add in some wind, humidity etc and the fire starting is that much more difficult. Like anything else, fire starting with a steel takes practice before you may ever need it and I always find it disconcerting when I see brand new and unused (un-tested) fire steels in people's kits.
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Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books.

John Lubbock