From daily comfort, to emergencies, being able to start a fire on a hunt is a key piece of mountain survival and needs to be a well thought out area of your gear kit
Items needed to have a proper late-season fire starter kit for emergencies and survival.
Have you ever found yourself in the mountains, craving a bit of extra warmth or a morale boost on a cold, slow day of hunting? Maybe you’ve faced an emergency where a fire was crucial to make it through the night? In any case, having a reliable fire starter kit is essential for late-season hunts.
The outdoors can be unpredictable, especially while hunting, which is why being prepared is key. For years, I managed without needing to start a fire on the mountain, but over the last five years, I’ve found myself making a fire at least once a year during my late-season hunts — whether it’s for a hot tent stove in the backcountry of Wyoming or deep in a freezing canyon in Colorado. A good fire starter kit isn’t just a luxury; it’s a necessity.
I personally like to have more than one way to start a fire on the mountain. Essentially, I like to have a backup to my backup and then another backup. There was a hunter last year who got snowed in and stuck deep in the mountains at high elevation, and all three of his Bic lighters failed him, making it impossible to start a fire. Not being able to make a fire in that kind of situation can escalate the danger level and can decrease your odds of survival. Fortunately, he made it out alive with the help of his Garmin and a Search and Rescue team. The truth is that this can happen to any of us when we venture out in the mountains, which is why it’s important to be prepared for anything, especially when it comes to your fire starter kit. Make sure you have different options as a fail safe to when it comes to starting a fire.
Starting with the basics, it’s good to have some waterproof/windproof matches in your fire starting kit. They don’t weigh much and they can work well if you have good kindling and structure to start a fire. The problem is that once you are out of matches, that’s it, and sometimes they don’t ignite upon strike. Another common component to most fire starter kits are lighters. They can be convenient and work great, but as stated above, they can also fail and it can cost you big time. They can fail in the wind, they can get crushed on a hunt, they can malfunction and, sometimes, the elevation can impact ignition as well; however, I do still like having at least one in my kit. I have carried a blast match, which is a flint-based fire starter. I have started fires with it, but mine is bulky and not real lightweight, so it doesn’t always make it into the kit. I have a small flint and steel tool that is much smaller and lighter that I keep in my kit as my final back up. One comparable product that I haven’t tried, but would like to, is the Pyro Putty MINI Mega Inferno Ferro Rod that is sold in the GOHUNT shop. Lastly, I always have some napkins or paper towels and dryer lint in a ziplock to use as dry kindling as part of my kit.
A more advanced option to consider adding to your kit is the Pyro Putty Elite Rechargeable Dual Arc Lighter. Lightweight at only 1.9 oz, it features dual arc technology that is windproof and will start a fire when you need it. It’s rechargeable, and you can get 300 lights on it in one charge! I have personally used this on multiple hunts and, though I like having the bigger flame of a Bic lighter, the plasma lighters do work great. GOHUNT has multiple plasma lighters to choose from, including the Pyro Putty Elite Rechargeable Dual Arc Lighter, the Tricer Arc Lighter and the Dark Energy Plasma Lighter that even comes with a 120-lumen flashlight. If you haven’t tried one, they don’t weigh much and you’ll have some peace of mind knowing you have another option to start a fire if needed. They also make great gifts to keep those around you prepared.
When it comes to wet conditions and wet wood, you need something that will burn longer than a match flame or some dryer lint. You need something more substantial. That’s where Pyro Putty or the Survive Outdoors Longer Fire Lite Fuel Cubes come in. You can portion either of these products out as you need to start the fire however best you see fit or use it all at once. Both options provide a clean burn and provide that critical burn time to get past any dampness in your kindling and start spreading the fire to get you warm and dry. The burn time that these two products are capable of is what really sets them apart from normal kindling, which can burn up too quickly. The burn time on the Fuel Cubes is eight minutes for the full cube or two to three minutes per a 1/8 of the cube. The Pyro Putty’s burn time for a quarter sized ball is 15 minutes and six to 10 minutes for a nickel-sized ball. Both the Pyro Putty and the SOL Fuel Cubes are lightweight, they light up easily and work in wet conditions. It’s a no-brainer to include one or both of these options in your fire starter kit.
I’ve relied on Pyro Putty in the backcountry of Wyoming to ignite fires in our hot tent stove on several nights after cold, snowy days of hunting, and I’ve used it to start a fire during a snowy blizzard on the mountainside to keep us warm as we waited out the storm. Getting a fire started without it would have been quite a challenge, especially with the mix of wet wood we had on hand. We also tried petroleum-dipped cotton balls, which worked decently, but they were a bit messy and didn’t burn as long or as efficiently as the Pyro Putty.
Last year, in Colorado, I shot a bull deep in a hole, and temperatures dropped when the sun went down. My friend’s toes were hurting pretty bad from the cold and we needed to pause processing the animal and get a fire going. All the wood was wet from the previous day’s snowstorm, but I had both my Pyro Putty and my fuel cubes, and we got it lit right up. Initially, there was a lot of smoke from the wet wood, but soon we had a decent size fire that gave us some relief from the bitter cold. My other friend was also able to locate us around 11:30 at night as he saw the primal caveman fire from the distance as we continued to work on the animal deep into the night. Having a fire that night was a real lifesaver as the temperatures dropped to 9 degrees before we packed out the elk at 1:30 a.m.. I imagine we would have needed to partially process the elk and hike out earlier that night without a fire. The pain from the cold was becoming unbearable, and we risked frostbite if we stayed out too long without a fire.
Even this year, when processing my son’s first buck, our headlamps, and phones were dying on the mountain, and we still had a lot of deer to cut up, but I had my fire starter kit ready to go if the headlamps died. If needed, I would have made a fire just to have light to finish the job.
In closing, even if you don’t think you’ll need to make a fire, take a fire starter kit. You may need to signal for help, you or someone else may be injured, or you may have to spend the night on the mountain next to a warm fire. You may need to cook up some fresh backstrap or tenderloin before a long pack out. Whatever you do, do it prepared.
