Starting fires

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At one of the summer camps we were part of in July there was a workshop on survival fire starting. It was a popular session, understandably. When young people see the seemingly impossible demonstrated they want in on the action. The guy leading the session had some serious mountain craft credentials to burn – if you'll pardon the pun – and he didn't disappoint.

We, however, had one disappointed young person. For some reason he'd missed the workshop and really felt like he'd missed out. So we decided we'd do a bit of firelighting ourselves. Not wanting to stake a claim as some kind of mountain man I did some research on YouTube for some more urban ideas. A shopping trip this afternoon equipped me with enough cans of Coke, chocolate bars, sticks of chewing gum and AA batteries to go around.

Yes, all of the above can be a useful part of an improvised fire starting process. Sadly, at this evening's get together the sun was too far gone for us to get the chocolate and Coke can thing working but a few of the guys did succeed with the AA battery and chewing gum method. And for those who didn't a 9V battery and wire wool did the trick!

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