You have in your position my absolute favorite fire starter. Coghlan's Emergency Tinder is the best as far as I am concerned. You can throw it in water, take it out and pull it in half and hit it with a spark and you have a flame that will last a good 5 minutes. Keep them in a small zip lock bag. If you get very cold you can see them and rip the bag open with numb fingers. A 35mm canister will not be so easy when it is frozen.

I had used the plastic match you are talking about. I was produced over 20 years ago and was called a metal match. The brass rod has some cotton in it that holds the lighter fluid. The idea at the time was that it was the smallest lighter sold. It looks like Coghlan's is selling it as a sparker for the Coghlan's Emergency Tinder. My advice is to throw it way and get a good ferro rod like the County Comm Metal Match or one of the other ferro rods. The back of a saw will work best to make sparks.

> Keep them in a small zip lock bag. If you get very cold you can see them and rip the bag open
> with numb fingers. A 35mm canister will not be so easy when it is frozen.

I'd have thought you could open a 35mm canister just by squeezing it, wacking it or otherwise deforming the body. The lid should just pop off. A ziplock bag you either need to carefully grip opposite ends of the mouth, or somehow tear the plastic, either of which would be hard with cold hands.

Thanks, I'll check these out!

Yep, I think the black film canisters would be easy to get open frozen or not with the big lip it has. As a last resort use the knife on it.

Brangdon,

I was also of the opinion that the 35mm film canisters were the best containers. Then I read a post on another forum about a hunter that had treated cotton balls in a 35mm canister and some additional fire making items in a plastic bag.

He said he was suffering hypothermia. He said he was not able to open the 35mm container in his condition. He said he was able to see the items in the plastic bag and open it with a knife. He said that once he got a fire going that he used a Space Blanket to reflect the heat back to him and he started to get warm. He also said he had a Swiss Army Knife and was unable to open it. He said he also had a Gerber Sportsman's sliding saw and was able to use it to cut fire wood.

I have put 35mm film canisters in my freezer and they do get hard to open. I have switched to small plastic bags I found at a craft store. I keep two bags so that if I loose one I am still good. I also keep an extra ferro rod in my CamelBak along with some fat-wood sticks.

What you can do with a clear head and warm hands is not the same as when you are freezing and near panic! I expect that I will have reached near panic before I admit I am in trouble and stop to survive.

I carry a 5-minute road flare (fusee) as my last ditch, must have fire now or will die device. It is big enough around to hold, even with cold and shivering hands, is mostly waterproof, will burn in heavy rain, and even in small puddles. If I cannot start a fire with that, then I am in very bad shape!

KI6IW,

What is a 5 minute road flare? Are you talking about the dynamite stick looking road flares? Do you have a web link? Car flares are good but kind of big and heavy compared to a ferro rod and some treated cotton balls.

Thanks!

Yes, available at my local auto parts store. And yes, they are big and heavy compared to almost every other form of fire lighting. But, if you are shivering from hypothermia, small things may be impossible to manipulate. Big things are easier. If you have never lit a road flare, I suggest you try one (in an area with no burnable materials). It produces lots of very hot fire with very little trouble. Remember to strike away from you, hold the flare away from you, and do not let it drip on you. A 5-minute flare is about 5-inches long. You may be thinking of 20 or 30-minute flares (more common), that are about a foot to 18-inches long.

Also, as I stated before, this is my last ditch, must make fire NOW or die firestarter. My usual firestarter when backpacking or camping is a match. As my father taught me (under non-survival situations), "if a man cannot start a fire with a single match, he does not know how to start a fire."

So the frozen film cannisters stayed shut even if you, eg, trod on them? Interesting, thanks. I'd love to test it myself but they have become an endangered species around here.