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Birch Bark "Cigar" Firelighter Print E-mail
Written by Geoff   
Article Index
Birch Bark "Cigar" Firelighter
Page 2
Page 2 of 2

birchbarkcigar6.jpg
Next, you need your firelighting kit. I'm using a traditional flint and steel, together with charcloth made from an old pillowcase, charred in a boot polish tin.

birchbarkcigar7.jpg
Strike a spark onto the charcloth, make sure it is glowing nicely, and insert it into the gap that you left at the end of the tube. Push it into the tube with a bit of twig to make sure it is in contact with the tinder.

birchbarkcigar8.jpg
Now, blow into the end of the tube, and as you draw breath do the Ray Mears thing of sweeping the tube down while you take a breath, then bringing it back up to your mouth. Soon, you should see clouds of smoke billowing out of the far end of the tube. There was smoke here (really), but I had to stop blowing to take the picture of myself.
birchbarkcigar9.jpg
The tube can get hot, so you may want to make a pair of 'pliers' out of a couple of twigs, or grab whatever is near at hand (in my case my garden secateurs) to hold it. At Woodlore, the instructor managed to get flame while still holding the tube.
birchbarkcigar10.jpg 
Finally, put the tube into the base of your fire...

...and add your kindling and fuel.

Hope this is of use. The 'cigar' is something that could be prepared in advance and taken out into the woods in a waterproof container, to help light a fire quickly if there isn't anything else readily available.

Next time, I'd probably use a longer tube and maybe only fill it half way with tinder. That way I could hold the tube at the 'mouth' end and, hopefully, this won't then get hot, as the flames should only occur at the far end of the tube.

Geoff



Copyright ©2003-2007 Bushcraftuk.com
Comments (3)add
...
written by BOD , August 27, 2007
nice one
...
written by mgr_scout , September 16, 2007
Simple and efective - good work!
...
written by Tune , August 19, 2008
I tried this at the weekend with great success, it even worked in light rain. I took your advice about leaving a gap at the "mouth end" to hold it which worked very well. The only problem I had was little bits of glowing embers blowing out of the mouth end burning my face - Keep your face well back when blowing.
I have even made a slight improvement - Having run out of large squares of bark I was forced to spiral roll a long, one inch wide, strip of bark. This had the advantage that when setting it down, the coil relaxed allowing flames to appear in all the gaps.
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