Russ and I have recently turned emergency preparedness into a small hobby. I like the sound of “emergency preparedness” better than “survivalist”, because the latter brings to mind images of bunkers and guns and hunting camo.

Sunday we basically had a day of arts and crafts, making fire stuff!

Paraffin Wax Cooking Candle

We started with small aluminum cans, cat food in this case. We rolled corrugated cardboard in strips just as tall as the cans, and shoved the rolled strip into the cans. Then we melted paraffin wax and poured it until it filled the can. This stuff takes a little bit to start (ie, a match may go out before it lights), but will apparently get hot enough to cook food and boil water!

 

Vaseline and Cotton Ball Starters

This stuff lights on fire super easy. Take cotton balls, and knead vaseline into it until it’s a gooey mess. This is really dirty and gross. 🙂 After we were happy with how much vaseline was in it, we dipped it in more paraffin to try to keep it sealed against water.

These light on fire super easy, and provide sustained heat. We placed one on the candle from above, lit it and it lit the candle. We imagine you could do the same with wood tinder if you needed.

Fire-Making Kit

Lastly we put it all together. Russ bought some fire-steel, which you strike one piece against the other to provide sparks, and we stuffed it into a small kit along with the cotton balls and some cinder cloth he’d made earlier. (no idea how to make cinder cloth…something about a smaller space and a tiny hole). The sparks from the fire-steel are enough to light the cotton balls, so we have a complete kit!

Then we dropped all of this into Miranda and mine’s emergency kit!