(26 September 2014, 20:34)Dorset Lad Wrote: I have read that birch bark will burn even when wet. Not tried it myself yet. Has anyone else tried it?
Birch bark will burn when slightly wet but one can not just lay a piece of bark down and start a fire by sparking with a ferro rod. One must fuzz the bark up to a very ragged state, them aim the sparks into the prepared area.
Steel wool, or iron wool, as you call it, will provide an ember for starting a fire but will not burst into flame on its own. The wool glows and can be used with proper tinder to get a flame.
Of all the emergency fire started available iron wool is my favorite by far.
You can take the battery out of any torch, walkie talkie, car battery or cell phone and short out the poles with a strand of iron wool and get a fire. You can catch sparks from the spine of a carbon steel knife blade struck by a piece of flint, catch the focused rays of the sun from a polished aluminum can bottom or dump the weakest coal from a fire spindle into it and it will glow until you bring a flame.
Even the weakest spark will catch on iron wool.
In fact, around the shop I have to be careful about accidentally starting a fire in iron wool because I use it to polish metal and it is often near the grinder, where sparks abound.
I am often amazed at all the things people here have "heard but never tried themselves" when they are available, cheap and very much worth the feeble effort.
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