How To Use a Magnesium Fire Starter

The magnesium block stick is a rock solid piece of gear that can easily tuck away with your survival kit, your tackle box, your glove compartment, jacket pocket, or hunting pack. It's one of those items that are heavily relied upon as a back up fire starter. The below instructions describe the process used to get a flame going.

How to use a magnesium fire starter

Use a knife to scrape along the magnesium side of the fire starter. You want to scrape enough to have a small pile about the size of a quarter. Be careful so you keep the shavings in one spot.

It helps to have a platform that will catch what you scrape.

You can use a piece of wood, a piece of cardboard, or anything else that will help you keep everything together. In high winds, a depression may be necessary. Once you have a small pile of magnesium shavings, place your tinder next to it and have your kindling ready.

On the other side of the magnesium fire starter is the flint. You run your knife down this side to create a bunch of hot sparks. You may have to scrape the flint several times to get the magnesium shavings to ignite. These hot sparks will ignite the magnesium shavings which will catch your tinder and kindling on fire.

These sparks are 5400 degrees! Even wet tinder will ignite with these magnesium shavings.

You will know when it ignites because it is white hot! Place your fine tinder on the flame and it will take off. Once your tinder is lit, you can then put your larger pieces of kindling on.

It's important to have enough tinder, kindling and larger pieces of wood available before you start.

Have all your materials prepared before starting. You don't want to have to start over!

If you don't have enough and your fire goes out, you will have to make another pile of shavings and start over. Practice learning how to use a magnesium fire starter before you need to use it in an emergency.

Even if you have a cigarette lighter, waterproof matches or another means of starting a fire, a magnesium fire starter ought to be a required item in your survival kit. As a backup, it will be there when your lighter is used up, has leaked out, or you have run out of matches. In fact, you should save your easier methods of starting a fire for when adverse conditions require you to use them. A magnesium stick is good for dozens, if not more, fires.

Click the image below to buy a magnesium fire starter.