Wanted to see if I could start a fire with my fire steel today using only what natural tinder material in my yard. Talk about a lesson in humility!!

After about an hour of striking the fire steel into tinder bundles made of dried grass and when that didn't work, dried pine needles crushed up, I finally gave in and used my lighter just to try and redeem myself.

I always carry some jute in a little pocket medicine vial along with some matches. My lighter stays on a dummy-cord in my pocket at all times. There are lighter scattered throughout my pack and my fire pouch that I wear on my belt when I'm out hiking has cotton balls w/vaseline in addition to a magnesium stick. So I always have some "non-natural" tinder on hand with back ups. But I wanted to see if I could do it "au natural". Good thing I carry the artificial stuff. If I had to rely on being able to do it w/ just what was lying around, I would've been screwed....

You need real fine, real dry stuff. Be sure to mash grass up to create lots of "split ends," almost thread-like stuff.

And sometimes you just have a bad day.

Move to AZ, Samhain. I've probably won $100 in BBQ party bets, "starting a fire in the backyard without a flame, using whatever is in my pockets and what I find on the ground."

I'm not saying I can do that where you live or when I lived in PNW, (as I finger the firesteel in my pocket ) but its a suckers bet here!

A lesson in humility? Definitely. I can relate! I couldn't do it a few weeks ago at a camp (in Ontario), and wrote it off to weeks of rain and damp tinder. (Shavings from wet wood are still damp!)

Making a bird's nest-type tinder bundle to catch the spark sounds easy but it's not. You need lots of super dry, fluffy stuff and that's not as easy as it seems. We've got a few going but only after some dry hot patches.

One of our Scouts brought a zip-lock bag full of milkweed with him this weekend and got a one-match fire going quite nicely. The other kids thought it was magic. Not sure if it would have worked so well with the firesteel.

thanks dweste.

I'm going to keep working at it until I get it come hell or high water.

I thought I had everything busted up fine enough but the sparks thought other-wise.

I hate it when inanimate objects disagree with me and win the argument.

It is one thing to use natural tinder in the southwest, especially Arizona, and quite another proposition in humid, muggy Louisiana. Just look at the current Arizona wildfires....

True.

My heart goes out to those folks losing their homes or in danger of losing their homes right now.

Out of curiosity: Have you tried firing up some of those cotton balls with your fire steel? What about some magnesium shavings? If the issue *was* the natural tinder, such as too much moisture thanks to high humidity etc., that would help answer that question.

I still have absolutely zero experience with a fire steel (mine is on its way ... hopefully it's here soon!), and really no advice to give from personal experience.

But on the same line of thought, there's also a pretty good reason that char cloth and other portable tinders have been used for a very long time: There's never a guarantee of finding something that will catch a spark, so it makes sense to have at least something with you.

Having grown up in south Louisiana, I can remember well how perpetually wet things can be there.

OOOO steel wool

I can relate. It's a worthy pursuit. Good luck.