DIY Emergency Fire Starter (Char Cloth)

A very useful skill is the ability to make char cloth. This material when properly prepared will ignite with the slightest spark. Used throughout history to help start fire in primitive methods. Char cloth can help us start a fire with flint and steel and Ferrocerium (flint rod).  The charring process occurs when a natural material (vegetable fiber) (such as linen, cotton or jute) that has been converted via pyrolysis into a slow-burning fuel of very low ignition temperature.

The process is called pyrolysis. Pyrolysis is defined as “a thermochemical decomposition of organic material at elevated temperatures in the absence of oxygen.”