Hooray for redundancy, Hikermor!

I'm in the "you can't have enough" category, ever since I had an incident where two of my three fire starters didn't work. (Scouting drilled the "threes" into me, too.) The cotton balls didn't catch fire, because A) they weren't 100% cotton, and B) I'd put too much vaseline in them and I'd kept them smooshed in little zip bags. My matches got used up due to strong wind and rain, even when I was behind a large rock; and I couldn't get enough sparks out of my ferro rod because it was new and I wasn't as experienced with it. Thankfully, I had a Bic lighter and a packet of tissues to ameliorate the sodden cotton balls; but even then, I had a difficult time due to bad weather and lack of dry kindling. (Ended up digging up some dead branches from under a felled tree.)

Since then I've learned to use my ferro rod properly, carry twice the matches, and make sure that my cottonballs aren't soaked and are made from 100% cotton. I've also learned to carry fresh chemical hand warmers in my kit, because even when you have multiple ways to make a fire, it's really hard to do so when your fingers have gone numb!


--M