A battery can create enough heat to start a fire. Touch the positive and negative ends of almost any battery (including a cell phone battery) with wire, steel wool, a strip of aluminum foil, a foil backed gum wrapper, a wire bread tie, or the foil from a cigarette pack to create heat enough to light a very fine tinder. This is not an easy method and can burn your fingers; you may want to practice this in advance. Using steel wool is the easiest to light tinder, gum wrappers and lighter material burns quick and hot. Have the metal touch the tinder as you connect the ends to the battery. A cigarette or cigar can be substituted for tinder to create a slower burning ember.
Projection TV sets from the 80’s, contain a Fresnel lens as the screen. They also make them in many other sizes for magnified reading, etc. Book stores and craft stores will carry various sizes that will be weightless in your B.O.B. Use it to start a fire and even cook with in bright sun. Hold the lens in the bright sun over a bundle of tinder, focus the point of light on the tinder, steadily until it starts to smolder and catch flame. Add additional tinder, twigs until established, then ad more sticks, getting bigger as the fire builds. Use it to start a fire and even cook with in bright sun.
A third way to alternatively create fire is to use clear plastic, such as cellophane or garbage bags, can also be attached to a frame, like you are putting glass in a large picture frame except you use plastic and secure it all the way around with tape. Mount the frame off the ground, using four forked sticks as a stand. Pour water into the frame, the water will create a belly and function as a lens. The height will need to be adjusted so that the bottom of the lens focal point is off of the ground. Move your tinder bundle to the focal point, ad mass underneath the tinder bundle (rock, wood, etc) to set it in place. Be careful to watch the process carefully, you want to remove the tinder as soon as it catches, otherwise, you will melt the lens and water will splash down and put out your embers. This is a fun one to do in the back yard with the kids, it also takes some practice.
And lastly, a chemical reaction fire, potassium permanganate mixed with glycerin. These 2 ingredients are often found in traditional 1st aid kits and the potassium permanganate can be used to sterilize wounds and water. My favorite thing about this trick is that you can find potassium permanganate in the “stay – fresh packets” that come with cut flowers and glycerin or glycol is found in antifreeze. Who knew you could start a fire with fluids from your car and flowers from your friend.
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Content by William Priday, Edited by Wanda Priday
Copyright © 2014.
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