aard,<br><br>I like your idea for sealing the straw, at least at the distal end. I suspect the vaseline would coat the inside of the straw on the proximal end, thereby precluding adhesion. Conceivably the outside of the straw could be cemented with, say, an epoxy, flattened, & folded towards the middle, thereby sealing proximal end.<br><br>I haven't personally tried the plain cotton balls, so I cannot comment on them. A few seconds of burn time is no better than a match. Iin my experience, the burn time of lint was a matter of seconds. Vaseline covered cotton balls burned for nearly a minute. The cotton balls impregnated with vaseline burned about 5 minutes. YMMV.<br><br>The purpose of this fire starter/tinder, is to provide a prolonged application of heat to the other tinder/kindling to ignite it. Remember, fire requires 3 components: oxygen + fuel + heat. A brief exposure to heat is not likely to heat up the fuel enough to burn it. That is one purpose of using this prolonged igniter. If the wood is wet, additional heat & time are necessary to dry it before ignition. Similarly, very cold wood/fuel also requires additional heating time for ignition. Other factors may also complicate fire starting making an extra margin in fire starting crucial, (e.g., rain/snow).<br><br>John

john; Thanks very much for your response. Not having been a Boy Scout when I was younger, I was pre-occupied with just getting a flame going. Now that you mention it, although I haven't tried the vaseline-soaked cotton balls, I did try spraying a cotton ball with Deet-based insect repellent. Whereas the dry cotton ball burned for about 5 seconds, the repellent-soaked one burned for a little over half a minute, although it gave off a rather oily smoke.<br><br>Otoh, my PSK contains both a tea-light candle and a hexamine tablet (plus 4 strike-anywhere matches dipped in paraffin, plus a flat Fresnel plastic lens), so I guess I'm thinking along more minimalist lines - i.e. if I have the presence of mind to bring a Wendy's straw stuffed with vaseline-soaked cotton wool, chances are I'll also have a Bic lighter, or maybe even my pocket Butane torch (with the Piezo-electric sparker :-)<br><br>I think sometimes, when engaging in these discussions, I forget to make a distinction between hoping for the best and preparing for the worst. At the one extreme, if I'm lost I would like to have my pocket Butane torch, my handheld GPS and my handheld aviation radio; at the other extreme, I want to be able to survive even if I've lost everything but the clothes on my back and my car keys. I guess carrying a small tube of vaseline-soaked cotton wool falls somewhere in the middle.