How to Make Fire Using Traditional Flint and Steel

It's not difficult to make a flint and steel fire, with a fire making kit and these easy to follow instructions:

To make a flint and steel fire, you need:

​A tinder bundle: a big handful of dry grass, dry leaves, or similar – made into a ‘nest’.

Ensure your fire bed (or fire tepee) is ready and prepared with kindling / twigs / wood of various sizes, and ready to accept your burning tinder.

How to use flint and steel

These instructions are for right-handers. The opposite works for left-handers:

1. Hold the flint in your left hand so that one of its longer sharp edges is at a 45 degree angle, facing your right hand.
2. Lay a piece of char cloth the size of a postage-stamp on the top (flat) side of the flint, and hold it there with your left thumb.
3. Keep the char cloth close to the sharp edge of the flint, a little back from the edge
4. Hold the striker vertically in your right hand
5. To make sparks, bring the striker down at a 30 degree angle across the edge of the flint. Following through with long strokes will help. 
6. Keep striking down until the char cloth catches a spark – this usually happens at the edge of the char cloth and might take one or two goes.
7. When a spark catches on the char cloth, it’ll glow red, you can blow gently on it to help it spread.
8. Place the glowing ember in your tinder nest, then blow hard or waft the nest, it'll make smoke first, then burst into flame. 
9. Transfer the burning tinder into your fire bed and cover with kindling, and voila!

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Useful Tinder extenders:

​Silver Birch Bark 
One of nature’s best firelighters. This light, thin bark takes a spark well, even when wet. It will help your tinder to catch fire - a small handful should be enough.

Kapok 
Highly flammable. Take a small pinch, fluff it up and add it into your tinder bundle with the silver birch bark to help the tinder catch fire.