Today you can get a ferrocerium rod or a magnesium bar at pretty much any outdoors or sporting-goods store. And if you cant find it there you won't have any problem finding one at ebay or amazon.
You can dip it in water and immediately strike spark of it, a truly magnificent piece of kit. But still I see lots of people shocked when they see me starting a fire with sparks from a piece of metal i one hand and the back of a knife in the other hand. And I also see a lot of people doing it wrong.
To start and maintain a fire you need to fulfill three needs. You will need heat witch is the firesteels main job for starting the fire and the embers to keep it going. Then you will need a combustible material, this you can bring with you or you can find it along your route. And last but not least you need oxygen to have a fire but I am going to assume that you already have this. If you didn't have this you would have way bigger problems other than not being able to start a fire!
So lets start with the heat part: To strike the firesteel you will need a sharp corner on the back of your knife or a dedicated striker made for this purpose. Place the tip of the firesteel on the combustible material and scrape the firesteel with the corner. The friction from the scraping ignites the metal scrapings and throws a shower of sparks onto your tinder and hopefully set it alight. NEVER USE THE EDGE OF YOUR KNIFE TO SCRAPE!!! This will dull the blade that might have to save your life in an emergency situation!
Moving on to the combustible materials.
My all time favorite tinder for firelighting here in Norway is without a doubt birchbark! This wonderful material has a lot of oils in it and burns really well and is by far the natural firestarter that is the easiest to ignite. It is really rare that I do not manage to get a fire going with this at hand. In the norwegian woods it is really damp most of the time (at least where I live) so the bark will be really damp as well, I normally gather it as I'm going towards my campsites and keep it in my pocket as close to the body as I can. This will dry it out efficiently.
If you prefer man made/ processed tinder, then cotton balls dipped in petroleum jelly is a really good option as the part with the dry cotton will ignite with no effort and the jelly will keep it burning for a long time.
With this information you should be able to get a fire going with a firesteel and you can enjoy a warm, good fire without matches the next time you are out and about!
See You Soon! :)
