Welcome to project “a fire a day” / #afireaday ! If you’re a regular reader of this blog (and why wouldn’t you be?) you know about the concept of training elemental skills in an easy and safe way. Like starting a fire. Don’t wait for weeks until you have enough spare time to do a multi day survival trip. Just try to integrate it into your daily life.

The idea for a fire a day

There were several “inspirations” for this project. First there was Instagram user “idox_gear” who motivated me to train more than before. He told me about how he tries to light a fire every day and if possible only with natural tinder. Then there was “Deepforest” (an pinesurvey author) who told me about David West. That guy literally has hundreds of videos showing him starting a fire.

So I thought at least for some time I’ll try to make a fire a day. So this hashtag came to life.

Rules of a fire a day

There’s not many rules. Just do your best and try to start a fire every single day. Since setting up a whole campfire, waiting for it to burn down and then safely extinguish it, takes more time than most people can spare from their busy life, it’s more about small ones.

So start a tiny fire where you’re sure you could grow it to a full blown campfire and then extinguish it. It’s about starting one, not having it burn all the way.

Take a picture of how you set up the tinder then take a photo of it burning. Post it and set the hashtag #afireaday .

What you need

Depending on your skill level, you could just try using a lighter and some paper. But soon you’ll switch to more “outdoorsy” tools of the trade. The first tool you should get yourself familiar with the fire steel. Other methods are useful, too, but a fire steel can always be part of your EDC and is one of the most important pieces of gear you can have when roaming the wild. So get yourself really familiar with it.

Basics for fire starting
Start with basic and proven techniques

More challenges

Our approach is that you should start small and slow. So if you’re not used to starting a fire, use every trick you learned so far. But if you are experienced, why not spice it up with a few extra challenges?

Just natural tinder
Example for an all natural tinder nest
  • Set yourself a time limit
  • Only use natural tinder or just tinder you found on the way
  • Don’t let wet or rainy days stop you

And so on. Just remember, the ultimate goal is to make yourself so experienced in fire starting that you won’t have a problem whenever you really need this skill.