With all due respect, an auto cigarrette lighter WILL start things on fire. I can take any one of them (that works), make it a -90 degree day, give me some decent paper or whatever, and it will burn. Oh yes my friend, they absolutely positively WILL start a fire (all other things properlay in place of course).

Not sure why you'd want to start a fire with a car cig lighter, given that you're in your car and there's 12 volt power available to run the lighter.

I think there are much better things to start a fire with, but..... imagine you're stranded and you need heat. Say, for whatever reason, you need more heat than you can get by being inside your car and you don;t have much fuel. So you want to build a fire outside, not far from the car, and you have no lighters, matches, flint strikers, or anything else. You might want to work a few times at starting a fire with the cigarrette lighter. I mean...just toying with the idea I can see some merit to it.

Actually, they may not be that obvious. I've read of people who were stranded in their car and said they had nothing to start a fire with. Apparently, they all had cars with no cigarette lighters, and no batteries, either. Or no brains....

Sue

"...no brains..."

Sadly, there is a lot of that going around...

The biggest problem with a cigarette lighter is that it annot maintain its temperature as long as a flame of a match or butane lighter. As soon as you pull it out of its socket it cools down by the second. Remember that it is made for a cigarette that is no more than two feet away from the socket. If you use it to burn some tp INSIDE the car, you are looking for trouble , and if you take the lighter outside of the car, it may not be hot enough to burn anything.

Maybe an extension cord is the best way to solve this problem. You will have the soket outside of the car, near the tender, and the lighter will be red-hot, hot enough to start a nice fire.

Maybe one of these can be the answer

Battery Clip Cigarette Lighter Adapter - $8.33



Cigarette Lighter Extension Cable - $8.00

Those are $4.99 at most auto parts stores, not $8.33, $8.33 sounds like a walmart price, they always end in odd numbers.

You could always get one of these for your computer.

Something you might want to check is if the plug says power outlet it is plastic. And a lighter would melt it. In my S-10 i have both so just a heads up.

The reason the car lighter works so well on cigarettes is that cigarette paper is coated with a chemical to help it burn.
Ever watch someone light one and then put down in an ashtray only to watch it continuously burn. But notice the same thing doesn't happen with cigars or pipes, they are not treated with said chemicals. They will go out if not smoked.


porkchop