Fire is one of the four pillars of survival making it one of the most valuable resources you can have. A quality firestarter is one of the keys to being able to consistently build a fire in the wilderness. You have lots of options for firestarters, but lighters can get your fire built quicker than any other option.
Fire in the wilderness will keep you warm, light your camp, purify your water, and cook your food making it safe to eat. It also will keep predators away, sterilize tools for medical purposes, and harden spear tips. The ashes can be used to settle an upset stomach, camouflage your skin, draw out toxins, filter water, and clean your teeth. The smoke can kill bacteria, preserve food, signal for help, and repel insects. There are few priorities as important in wilderness survival as being able to start a fire.
There are many steps to building a good fire, but the first step is the most challenging. You must have a good firestarter and quality tinder to get the fire going. It is not uncommon for tinder to be wet in the wilderness, and this can make starting a fire nearly impossible. If you are trying to use a ferro rod or a bow drill, you are probably not going to have any luck. If you have a good lighter, you can often start a fire even with tinder that is not ideal. If you have dry, fine tinder then you should be able to start the fire on the first try.
Choices for Lighters
Any lighter is going to give you a huge advantage with wilderness survival, but they are not all created equally. Probably the most common lighters available are the cheap, disposable lighters you buy at gas stations. These Bic style lighters are actually quite reliable, but they are horrible if there is any wind. They also cannot be refueled, so they must be replaced frequently. Fortunately, they are cheap so you can bring several.
Zippo-style steel lighters are another great choice. They are windproof, hands-free, and can be refueled with any flammable liquid. They are tough as nails, made in the USA, and often have a lifetime warranty. However, they get a bit pricey considering you do need to refuel periodically. Butane torch lighters are windproof and can actually shoot a flame straight down. This is helpful when you are trying to start a tinder bundle that is on the ground below you. They do have to be refilled with butane, so refills are not convenient.
Electric arc lighters are one of the newest options for starting a fire. These gadgets are windproof, require no fuel, and are incredibly reliable. They have pros and cons, but in some cases they may be the best fire-starting option you have. In this article, we will cover how an arc lighter works and why you might want one in your bug-out bag.
What’s an Electric Plasma Lighter?
The plasma or arc lighter was created to eliminate the need for fuel of any kind. The first prototype was built just about six years ago with the intention of marketing it as a nifty way to light candles. The mechanism creates a high-intensity arc of electricity that will fire up almost any tinder. The arc lighter was desirable because it not only could light candles, but it also produced zero charring. Other lighters can leave a black residue on metals and other surfaces, while the arc lighter will not. Once they realized what they had created, they re-engineered it for a pocket-sized lighter.
Now that they have been around for a while, electric lighters are gaining popularity because no fuel is required and because they allow you to light a fire from any direction. The only real downside to electric lighters is that they must be charged periodically. The mechanism creates a high voltage current that arcs from one node to another. The plasma arc creates the heat needed to light your tinder.
The physical process is similar to a bolt of lightning. The electrical charges will accumulate until there is enough of a charge to move through the air. In this case, because there is another electrical node close by it is a very short trip. However, it still creates light, heat, and sound like a bolt of lightning. We just shrunk it down to fit in your pocket.
What You Can Light
Most electric plasma lighters are going to produce a plasma arc with temperatures around 2000F. This temperature is plenty hot to light tinder, but it does not build up unnecessary heat. One of the most common questions we get is the list of materials that will light with an arc lighter. Really, you can light anything that you could light with any traditional lighter.
You should have no problem lighting paper products, cigarettes and cigars, candles, incense, fireworks, and gas grills. The arc lighter can also melt materials like a traditional lighter. If you want to melt the ends of paracord or other artificial materials, it will do the job. The only rule is that the material needs to be in between the two nodes.
Safety
Most arc lighters have a bunch of features built in to keep you safe. The materials used for and around the nodes are designed to stay cool. Traditional lighters will get hot over time making the hot metal a hazard. I have had my share of blisters because of lighter burns. You will not have this issue with electric lighters. In addition, the nodes are spaced so that you cannot accidentally get a finger or other body part in between.
This eliminates most of the risk, but the danger is not as extreme as you might think. You would not get electrocuted by an arc lighter like you would from an electrical outlet. The damage done by an arc lighter would be similar to a standard lighter, but it would cover a smaller area. Electric lighters also have safeties and delays to prevent them from being triggered unintentionally.
Do I Really Want to Charge?
Of course, with any electric appliance you need a source of power. These lighters are designed to be charged with a USB cord. This was the number one reason why I originally hesitated to purchase an arc lighter. As a survivalist and prepper, anything that requires electricity makes me nervous. What happens if the grid is down, or we are in the bush with no power? I cannot just have my lighter run out of juice.
My solution has been to bring a portable power bank with me. I keep my lighter completely charged, but with the power bank I can recharge it without the grid if needed. In fact, I could probably recharge it two or three times on one power bank. The charge takes about two hours and will normally give you about 100 lighter strikes. Think about how many strikes you need on a Zippo in order to start a fire in the wild. With proper tinder, it should only be one or two strikes. That means that one full charge on an arc lighter could build 50 fires. That’s really pretty solid when you think about it.
Is Electric Best?
We can now consider all of our options for firestarters and decide if the arc lighter makes sense for our survival gear. We already agreed that lighters are the fastest option. We can bring disposable lighters that won’t work in the wind, but that are cheap enough to bring a few. We can bring a Zippo-style lighter that is windproof and can be refilled with any flammable liquid. However, it cannot be turned upside down to light tinder. You have a butane torch that is windproof and can be turned upside down, but it must be refilled with butane. Finally, you can bring the electric plasma lighter that is windproof, can be turned upside down, and requires no fuel but must be recharged periodically.
I do own all of these different options and use all of them for different purposes. One of them is on me at all times. However, if I was forced to choose one it would likely be the arc lighter. The fact is that it would likely hold its charge for more fires than a Zippo, disposable, or butane would last. I also think finding power would be easier than finding fuel with my battery packs charged. The arc lighter is ideal in that it allows you to invert the lighter to produce a flame.
The choice is really up to you, and you don’t have to just pick one. I would suggest that you have multiple options for multiple different scenarios. Arc lighters can be a bit pricey, so do your research. Be sure you charge it and use it as soon as you can to be sure it functions how you want. You also want to practice with the arc lighter as you do with any survival equipment. This is the only way to be sure you can use it when it really counts.