Is Bushcraft Fire Starting a Waste of Time?

Depending on who you follow on the internet and YouTube there is a great deal of varied opinion on how important the ability to start a fire is, especially with any tool past a cigarette lighter. There seems to be two main camps that have become popular: 1) The Bushcrafter – someone that has fifteen different fire starters and they spend quite a bit of time practicing a the basic skills revolving around the concept of bushcrafting. 2) The Special Forces Influencer – who make fun of all things flat range or Bushcrafters with their fifteen fire starters.

Who is right? Probably neither group after all, the Bushcrafter has a Bic cigarette lighter somewhere in their kit, and SF guy won’t make a fire because the Taliban will kill them if they do. Neither of these people are living in a current reality, bushcrafting is a hobbies involving the practicing of skills and the vet isn’t still in war.

If you are actually needing a fire because it is a life or death situation you will use the tool that will make that result the quickest. If you have spent years learning how to make bow drills and ferro rod fires, then you will have little difficulty making a fire with modern tools. If you only carry two Bic lighters and never make a fire with them, then you probably won’t be very good at making a fire. I fully understand not wanting to make a target indicator, which a fire certainly is, but with a little bit of fieldcraft and camp site selection you can push it a little to make a fire that might help keep you alive if the situation requires it.

After all, it wasn’t uncommon for illegals crossing the border to make a fire in the winter and we were trying to apprehend them, depending on their fieldcraft it could either give them away or not even be a factor. I also believe in the grid down survival scenario of mad max and the like, again the need to make a fire to stay alive might be super important, but if it causes the boogeyman to find you it’s because you are doing a everything else wrong too and its simply a matter of time before you were going to get caught.

I promise you the guy or gal that makes fire for fun will be better prepared in an emergency. I can also bet that anyone who participates in outdoors sports will need to make a fire at some point in their life where hypothermia or boiled water will become important concerns for their health.

Have you ever seen a badass SEAL or Army SF bubba make a fire at a camp site? I have a few times (the sample size is small, I don’t have a lot of SOF acquaintances, don’t get your panties in a wad the SOF community is still awesome) they weren’t bushcrafters, and they struggled like crazy with the fire if they aren’t practiced at it, just like everyone else. So now I take the two Bic lighter guys with a grain salt. Especially in the northwest where cold and wet exist for much of the year.

Morale of the long winded story: bushcraft fire practice are not a waste of time, but I wouldn’t carry more than two light weight fire starting methods in my emergency kit. You should practice making a fire in the woods and if you are learning a new technique than carry the extra tools for that practice.

The whole speech of “one is none, two is one, and three is two”, is crap advice resulting in people carrying excess equipment. There are very few things that you should carry a back up for, and certain not every single piece of equipment.

If two online communities that different of a view point from each other, especially for a theorical scenario, then go with an answer is likely somewhere in the middle. But what do I know, I’m not cool enough to be in either of those groups.

-Joe