Kettletown, CT State Park provided these handy little firestarters |
Firestarter 1: Wood chips and wax
The campground gave us starters made out of woodchips and wax, housed in those tiny paper cups they give out medication in at mental institutions.
Results: The lip on the paper cup made a good wick, so the starters caught fire right away. They burned steadily and didn't go out. I did wish they made more of a blaze, though, since everything was so damp.
Firestarter 2: Toilet paper rolls and dryer lint
We used graph paper because we didn't have any newspaper |
Results: Maybe these would start faster if we had used newspaper and not graph paper (apparently we don't know what's going on in the world but what we do know we like to chart). But either way, I had the same conclusion as with the wood chip starters, which is that the lint didn't make much of a blaze, so I had to tease the flame with bits of this and that to get it going.
Firestarter 3: Egg cartons and crayons, or "Fire Kisses"
"Fire Kisses" in the making |
Results: As Samantha predicted, these worked the best! You break them off one by one and use them as needed. The egg carton cardboard catches really fast and the combination of cardboard, paper and wax made a flame that was big enough to get our damp, morning fire going. Go, Girl Scouts! (And thanks to Samantha. )
You may also like: