Our Favorite Fire Starters Of 2021

When your survival depends on having crucial items, you can't afford to be without them. One of the must-have tools that you need is a fire starter. And you don't want to trust your life to one that may or may not work. You want one that's good quality that'll see you through time and time again.

A fire starter is one of those tools. Without fire, you're unlikely to survive long. Fire can cook food, keep you warm and dry, and smoke can help show where you are if people are looking for you. You won't last long without it, so having a tool that can reliably start a fire is one of the most important ones to keep in your kit.

There are all kinds of fire starters, but today we're focusing on ferrocerium rods and metal strikers. We've done the heavy lifting of finding our best pick for the ideal fire starter, and in this article even go over our process for finding them, so you can do your own research and know how to find your ideal fire starter.

What To Look For:

Number Of Lights - Like almost everything, fire starters do have a lifespan. Quality ones will last tens of thousands of lights, while cheaper fire starters will stop working after a few hundred or thousand.
Simplicity - When it comes to a fire starting tool, simple is generally better. This is technology that has lasted thousands of years, and for good reason. Adding lots of steps or moving parts that can break of or stop working can diminish the reliability of one of the most vital tools in a survival kit.
Quality Scrapers - The way a ferro rod fire starter works is that the scraper is scraping off white-hot sparking strips of ferrocerium from the rod. For this to work consistently and with the best results, you want a sharp steel scraper.
Reliability - If your fire starter can't reliably spark, it's of no use. You need to know it's dependable, and that no matter what situation you're in you'll be able to make fire.
Weatherproof - Emergencies can strike any time in any condition.

What To Avoid:

Unnecessary Features - The more complex, delicate, or moving parts a starter has, the more chances and opportunities for it to break. If you take something delicate into the outdoors, and it breaks, you are stuck without one of the most vital parts of a tool kit.
Dull Scrapers - To get the best light and heat, you want to be able to consistently shave off strips of the ferro as sparks. A dull scraper is the most likely part of your starter to be poorly made, so make sure it's quality.
Difficulty and Unreliablility - Because fire is so necessary to survival in a wilderness emergency, you don't want a starter that is finicky or difficult to use. The steps to start your fire should be easy to understand and follow.
Dependencies - For example, sunlight. There are some kits that use the light and heat of the sun to start fires. While these certainly have their place, they are all but useless for emergencies that happen at night, in dense forests, or during inclement weather.

Our Research-Backed 9-Point System

We've done the heavy lifting of finding our best pick for the ideal fire starter, and in this article even go over our process for finding them, so you can do your own research and know how to find your ideal fire starter: