40 Minutes of Flame from an Altoids Tin: DIY Natural Fire Starter

If you can’t get a fire started over the top of this; you’re in big trouble. This is just Douglas fir resin with some cedar curls and together this mixture lights easily and puts out a serious amount of heat. There is nothing too surprising about that, but I was stunned at how long it burns in the tin. I tried two full length burn tests after letting the tins cool and the sap harden; and the first tin burned for 41 minutes, and the second one burned for 36. The entire tin puts out hot flames until the last three minutes, at which point it is struggling and not much stronger than a candle flame.

Between the heat and burn time, you could definitely get even a very poorly prepped fire started by putting this underneath your kindling, and closing the lid to snuff it out once you are confident that your fire is stable.

If you let it burn down to the point where there is still resin in the tin, but all of the shavings are charred, it is much more difficult to light the next time. However, simply heating the tin and mixing in some more curls refreshes it and it should be good to go for the next fire.

The wood shavings serve two purposes. The first is to catch the spark and create the initial flame to melt the resin. The second important function is that the wood shavings act as a wick. Tree resins will burn on their own, but burn much better with flammable wicking materials mixed in. You can make this work with fresh sap by mashing it into your wicking material, but it works much better if you can liquefy it first.

I chose wood shavings for these tests, but shredded bark works very well in this role too.

I will still be carrying petroleum jelly cottonballs in my fire kits, but the fact that a tin can be restocked indefinitely with natural materials and perform this well makes this another good reason to carry as small tin like this one; and I haven’t even started playing with glue yet.

I am a huge fan of fatwood too, but for the size and weight of a full tin of sap and curls, I’m not sure you could get the same heat output and burn time out of it.

I used Douglas fir pitch for these, but I am sure that you could substitute other conifer resins and bark or wood shavings in other areas of the country. I would love to hear how long your tin burns for.

Materials Used:

Altoids Tin
Douglas fir Resin
Western Red Cedar Shavings

Music: Luca Stricagnoli – The Last of the Mohicans (Guitar)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Kbv1OpIpaA