Last Updated on October 29, 2020 by
There are a lot of different materials you can use to start a fire, but some of the best ones are the ones that are already laced with flammable substances so that it makes it super easy to get a fire going. Today we are going to look at some of the best flammable materials for starting fires with.
If you prefer to start a fire with more natural tinder or man-made tinder, make sure you have some of it prepared ahead of time if possible. It makes it a lot easier if you find yourself in a precarious situation.
1. Trioxane Bars
There tends to be a lot of confusion around the condensed fuel tablets of hexamine, Esbit, and Trioxane. These tablets are popular among campers and backpackers and are often used with disposable metal stoves to boil a small amount of water, for example. They once were used by the military to heat up MREs, but because of the toxicity, the military has moved onto more safer methods of heating food. With that said, let’s start with breaking down trioxane bars.
What Are Trioxane Bars?
Trioxane comes in foil wrapped bars of 3/4″” x 2″ x 1/4″. After doing some technical, scientific research on the substance, trioxane is trimeric acetaldehyde and is a raw material for pentaerythritol, which in turn can be nitrated to PETN (tetranitrate of the former), another popular high explosive. I know that’s a lot of jibberish, and I am frankly not a scientist either, but it’s just good to know what type of chemical makeup you’re dealing with.
The current standard fuel bar, Trioxane, produces noxious and potentially hazardous fumes that restrict its overall usefulness. Trioxane consists primarily of the chemical metaformaldehyde, and formaldehyde has been recently identified by OSHA, NIOSH, and ACGIH as a suspected carcinogen. I’m assuming this is why the military decided to no longer use it after awhile.
But, with all of it’s toxicity, people still use it because trioxane bars make it quick and easy to start fires in dry or wet conditions. Be careful to take note that Trioxane will evaporate so if you have an accidental tiny hole in the packaging, you might end up with no bar at all!
The only complaint that people typically have is that trioxane leaves a very hard black deposit that can be a little harder to remove from the surface you were burning it on.
How Long Do Trioxane Tablets Burn?
Typically trioxane bars will burn anywhere from 10-15 minutes. This is just long enough to hopefully bring your water to a boil.
Where Can I get Trioxane Bars?
You can easily get military issued trioxane bars from Amazon. You can get them in various quantities as well. You can buy them in large cases that come with 9 boxes (3 in each box) or smaller sizes as well.
All of the trioxane bars that they have today are the original packaged stuff from 30 years ago. It seems that they’ve been getting more expensive at supplies continue to dwindle down. But you can still get them at military surplus places and Amazon.
U.S. Military Fire Starter Trioxane Fuel Bars (*there’s no image posted on Amazon but you can still get them)
2. Hexamine Tablets (Esbit)
What Are Hexamine tablets?
Esbit is the company name that has become the generic term for hexamine tablets and you often hear them spoken of interchangeably. Hexamine tablets are slightly different than trioxane bars due to their chemical makeup and how they burn.
You will encounter various opinions on which burns better, hexamine or trioxane tablets, so you may want to do some testing yourself. Esbit fuel tablets are white cubes about 3/4″x 1″ x 1/2″ and comes wrapped in plastic with a foil top.
A hexamine tablet is a form of solid fuel that is in tablet form. The tablets burn smokeless, have a high energy density, do not liquify while burning, and leave no ashes when finished. Pretty cool right?!
What Is Hexamine Made From?
Hexamine is an adduct of formaldehyde and ammonia, a tricyclic compound. Invented in Murrhardt, Germany, in 1936, the main component is hexamine, which was discovered by Aleksandr Butlerov in 1859. Some fuel tablets use 1,3,5-trioxane as another ingredient.
According to the illustrious Wikipendia, “Trioxane is combined with hexamine and compressed into solid bars to make hexamine fuel tablets.”
How Long Do Hexamine Tablets Burn For?
Similar to the trioxane tablets, hexamine tablets should burn anywhere from 8-15 minutes. One cube should bring about 1 pint of water to boil in that time frame (you hope, because it doesn’t always happen).
What Is An Esbit Stove?
Please remember that you should always use hexamine and trioxane tablets outdoors or in a ventelated area. Can you cook with them in a tent? Sure. Would I do it myself? No. This is what an Esbit stove is for.
It’s essentially a little, tiny, disposable metal tin that you can safely burn the hexamine tablet on. You can also buy an entire set that includes the little container for boiling water in, and is a little more elaborate than just the simple little tin as mentioned above.
Esbit CS585HA 3-Piece Lightweight Camping Cook Set for Use with Solid Fuel Tablets
Where Can You Get Hexamine tablets?
3. Fire Sticks
Fire sticks are just another commercial product used to start fires either outdoors on a grill, for example, or in your home in your fireplace. These are not toxic, which makes them a little safer than some of the other materials on this list. They don’t have any odor and can even be lit after having been dunked in water (probably by accident no doubt).
Colghan’s Fire Sticks make for a great addition if you’re an avid backpacker or want to throw these little guys in your bug out bag or vehicle. Each of the boxes contains 12 sticks, so they are quite affordable and easy to store.
Take note that the sticks aren’t individually wrapped, so make sure after you use one, store them in an airtight, moisture sealed container, or simply put a plastic bag around them first, then put them back in the box.
- 1 pack of 12 pieces
- Product Dimensions: 2 x 5 x 7 inches
- Waterproof
- Great for using under wet conditions
4. Wet Fire
Wet Fire is another form of fire starter that you can buy on Amazon. Wet Fire is the brand name of these little fire starting tablets that look and act similar to hexamine tablets.
Wet Fire tablets are known for their ability to start a fire quick and easily in wet weather conditions. You can typically light these small tablets with any flint and steel or spark method, or simply put waterproof matches to them.
- Individually packed
- Shelf-life approximately 5 years
- Guaranteed to light in the wind
- Burns up to 5 minutes each
5. Fire Paste
Fire paste is another fantastic fire starter for survival situations. This is probably the easiest fire starter to use, but just know that it only lasts about 1-2 minutes when lit. Because of that, fire paste is primarily used to help get your fire started. It can be difficult to try and light with ferro rods, unless you have a lot of fire paste and have a surface where you can spread it out.
This fire paste takes pretty good to a flint and steel spark, and as you see from the above video, you can get away with using it under light rain conditions. The best way to use fire paste is to put it on a vaporizer for priming (if you want, but not necessary), or you can simply put it directly on a nice piece of fire board to get the actual paste lit.
It works really well for starting campfires, and can easily be carried in a plastic container instead of carrying the entire tube.
- No harmful chemicals
- 3.75 oz tube
- Lights quickly in either dry or wet weather
- Light and compact
- Good for bug out bags and hiking packs
6. Fire Starter Squares (Safe Lite)
The Ruland Safe Lite Fire Starter Squares are great for starting fires with grills, smokers, fire pits, bonfires, campfires, wood stoves, and coal stoves. The squares are quite large when you break them off, so you can split them down the middle with a knife and use about half of one to get your fire started.
Like some of the other above fire starters, it’s much easier to lite these squares with a lighter or a match. It becomes much more difficult to use a flint and steel or any other type of spark methods.
- Made with recycled wood chips and wax
- No flare up and won’t put any flavor into your food
- Made in the USA
Final Thoughts
Starting a fire without matches is a great skill to learn, but if you can have something like these artificial fire starters, it sure does help if you are out there stuck in the woods by yourself. If you haven’t noticed, there are several different commercial fire starters on the market, and many of them I didn’t cover in this post because there are just too many. I wanted to only share the best and the ones that I have personal experience with.
What is your favorite fire starting method? Let us know below!