Fire Starters

It's one of those Ten Essentials things. The ability to start a fire. A life saving skill in the cold, and one that can be difficult in the worst of conditions - when everything's wet. So when I ran across Jermm's blog post "DIY Fire Starter Wafers," I had to give it a try.

Folks have been using wax-impregnated stuff as emergency firestarters for years. Lately a few vaseline-soaked cotton balls stored in a pill bottle is a common solution (tho it sounds like a potential mess). Alcohol-based hand sanitizers such as Purell can be brought to task, and there are all kinds of commercial firestarters available. What Jermm did was to saturate those flat, cotton cosmetic pads with molten candle wax. When dried, they harden into very packable flat discs.