Hi everyone,

Kochanski says in his DVDs that the three survival kit components he tend favor in the modern sense are paracord, reflective blankets and the zirconium rod. That's a new one on me. I'm familiar with ferrocerium rods, magnesium shavings, etc. but this one, I've done researches but didn't find any relevant info. on it in a survival fire lighting point of view. Does anybody include this item? If so, then how do you use it and what are its characteristics and its virtues and drawbacks?

Thanks
Frankie

Zirconium

Yes, I've read the wikipedia article but I'm wondering about it in practical point of view like in what kind of store do you find it and how do you use it...

From what I understand, if zirconium is in powder form, it can easily ignite. The trick is, that it has to be in the air. If it is in powder form yet is on a pile on the ground it may be more difficult to ignite. One thing it holds over magnisium though, is that burning magnisium doesn't like water, it really doesn't like water. Zirconium powder has a lower combustion temperature then magnesium so the reaction shouldn't be as bad. If you want to see how it reacts with fire, magnesium fire

He must mean a firesteel.

It's not that it reacts badly with water; it burns so hot that the water in the video was spreading the powder around and the magnesium was catching fire and blazing up.
You can't put magnesium out with water I've watched magnesium flares burn under water.