Ferrocerium rods, also known as ferro rods or firesteels, are made of a pyrophoric mischmetal that, when it is shaved into small splinters that have a high surface area in the presence of adequate atmospheric concentration, spontaneously ignite.
While these are sometimes referred to as “flints” they are in fact not the same, and the sparks from ferrocerium are significantly hotter than flint. They can burn at over 5,000℉. This makes striking a fire from a ferrocerium rod much easier than with a flint.
This also makes ferro rods much more beginner-friendly as fire starters than many other forms of fire-starting survival gear, and unlike a lighter, they don’t run out of fuel, although you do consume a little bit of the rod with each strike. Still, many ferro rods will last through many hundreds if not thousands of uses.
And here’s how to do just that – how to light a fire with a ferro rod.
Identify and Gather Tinder
The first thing you need to do is find a tinder source. The following are some good ones:
- Shredded and crumpled up paper
- Dryer lint
- Dried plant fibers, such as thistledown or milkweed fluff
- Bunched up dry grasses
- Cattail down
- Tinder fungus
In addition, dry wood shavings, especially from oak or white cedar, will usually catch a spark from a ferro rod. In addition, these burn hotter and longer than other forms of tinder, though they are harder to locate and produce.
Once you have tinder, you will want at least one fistful, though two are better. Bunch it up into a nest and start constructing your main fire structure.
Construct the Fire
You absolutely must arrange your fire before you strike your tinder, because once you do that you only have a few seconds, minutes at most, before it all burns up.
First you’ll need kindling, which is a step thicker than tinder but which will burn longer. You will want a good fistful, if not an armful of this.
Then you will need your main fuel – logs no thicker than your wrist, split and sized as needed. You will want a whole armful, if not much more. Really there’s no upper limit to have much fuel you should have.
Arrange your fire in either a teepee or a log cabin configuration, with the kindling innermost surrounded by the fuel.
Leave a space for your tinder nest and place it in the middle of your kindling.
Strike and You’re Off
Once you have your fire built, but not lit, you can finally strike your spark.
There are two things you want to be sure of here: one is that your tinder catches the sparks; the other is that the action of your striking doesn’t knock down your teepee or log cabin.
One way to do this is to hold your ferro rod a few inches away from the tinder ball, take your striking hand, and pull the rod backwards, rather than forwards toward the fire.
This will draw the arm holding the ferro rod away from the fire while directing the sparks forward, increasing the chances that the tinder ball will catch it while minimizing the chance that the motion will disrupt your structure.
Let the tinder catch, and be patient; your fire should grow.
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