Firestarting

You have your stocks of food, water and timber and your wood-burning stove is ready to be lit, but all your matches are damp and the electricity is out. You need that most ancient of human inventions - a means of making fire.

There are very efficient fire-starters on the market, but one needs them now before an emergency shuts down the shopping and supply system. For now, there is Amazon, where you can simply search for fire-starters. In Ireland, there is also a survival store called Be Prepared (www.beprepared.ie) The two common and practical fire-starters are 'strikers'. Each produces sparks by striking flint. The simpler one comes with a tin of tinder, which can be replaced with dried material gathered locally and the second, more sophisticated, comes with a magnesium bar from which flakes of magnesium can be paired. The cold sparks from the flint-strikes light the tinder in the first case and the magnesium flakes in the second, igniting them first into hot sparks from which they burst into flame or, if merely glowing, can be fanned into flame.

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