A basic guide on how to start a campfire using your knife.

Starting a Campfire with a Knife

Can you start a fire only with a knife? Surprisingly, high carbon steels without factory coating can produce an ignition spark. To do this properly, you’re going to need flint — a hard, gray rock that fractures easily.

  • Find Useable Wood: Locate dry wood inside upright dead branches or trees. Cut them down and break them into usable lengths. To chop wood with a knife, position it against the log and strike the back of the knife using a forearm-sized piece of wood. Follow the same «V» shape motion as with an axe.
  • Split The Wood: Stand a log upright, place the knife across it, and use a forearm-sized wood baton to strike the knife, splitting the log;
  • Find kindling: Take a bark and shave off some thin, finger-sized, and wrist-sized pieces of dry wood;
  • Prepare tinder. You’re looking for dry material that will easily light up. You can use Vaseline-soaked cotton balls or dry bark shavings as a basis for your kindling. Preparing «char cloth» beforehand is handy too — it’s a cotton cloth, cooked to a charred state.

Tinder, kindling and firewood

Photo from theadventurouscamper.com

  • Prepare the Nest: Combine tinder and kindling to create a small nest for flint shavings. Trying to search for dry grass or juniper bark — they make a good kindling.
  • Create a Stable Setup: Construct a bed or nest and place it on a rock or cardboard. Block wind and consider placing it in the fire pit initially.
  • Flint Shavings: Use a pocket knife to scrape flint into the nest. Char cloth can enhance ignition. Adjust shavings if needed.
  • Ignite the Nest: Hold the flint near the nest, angling it downward for sparks to fall into the middle. Use the opposite side of the flint. Repeated scraping may be necessary.
  • Build the Fire: Once sparks ignite the shavings, add more kindling to enhance the flame.

Ways to lay a fire

How to start a Fire with a Knife and Ferro Rod in one go?

  1. Choose a knife with a squared-off, uncoated spine for striking; a full tang knife with a squared-off spine works best.
  2. Place a knife vertically behind a tinder, with the spine looking upwards;
  3. Place a Ferro Rod over the spine of the blade and then pull it away in one, quick swing, aiming at tinder.
  4. Enjoy the newborn fire.

Slowly Add Wood: Once the tinder catches fire, arrange the smallest kindling pieces so the flame hits their narrow sides. Gradually add larger pieces of kindling as the fire grows. Blow gently into the heart of the fire, maintaining a slow, steady breath to avoid disturbing the fire or extinguishing the flame.

Starting a Campfire with Kindling and a Flint Striker. This one assumes you were able to find a flint in the wilderness. To generate sparks, strike the back of the blade against the sharp edge of the rock with a quick downward motion.

Use deliberate, powerful strokes, directing the sparks toward the tinder bundle. Besides having the charred cloth in the tinder bundle, try holding a small piece under your thumb against the flint near the striking edge. Many times sparks will deflect upward away from the steel as it strikes the flint, and the cloth may catch them.

At BPS Knives, we offer several models that come with a Ferro rod as part of the package. One such model is the Bushmate knife, designed in collaboration with renowned bloggers from the Netherlands. This knife comes with a leather sheath, ensuring safe and convenient carrying during outdoor adventures. The sheath features a loop for attaching a 8mm diameter Ferro rod, allowing for easy and quick fire starting in any conditions.

Bushmate by BPS Knives

If you see smoke, but no flame then gently blow on the base of the nest to help the wood ignite.