FireBushcraft
Flint and steel fire lighting
Catch a spark on a cotton wool ball and grow it into a flame. The first fire a child lights themselves is one they talk about for weeks.
How it goes
- Sit everyone at the fire circle and show the striker, the steel and a fluffed-up cotton wool ball.
- Demonstrate the kneeling position: knee down on the same side as the striking hand, steel held low and still.
- Each child scrapes the striker down the steel onto their cotton wool, aiming for the fluff.
- When it catches, they lift it on a tray or bark into the fire pit and add pencil-thin twigs.
- Grow the fire together: pencil sticks, then thumb-thick, then wrist-thick.
Risk-benefit starting point
Shared by the author as a starting point, planning this idea imports it into your own risk-assessment library to review and make your own before use.
Why it's worth it- Real fire skill and the confidence of having lit it themselves.
- Patience: most children need several goes before it catches.
- Sparks and burning cotton wool, Burns to fingers; sparks on clothing residual: Low
- Open fire, Burns; loose clothing or hair catching residual: Low
- One child striking at a time, kneeling, with an adult beside them.
- Burning cotton wool moved on a tray or bark, never in fingers.
- Fire circle rules throughout: step over the log, never through; hair tied back; water bucket and burns kit in reach.
Questions & comments
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Ask the first one: how long does it take, what age did it work for. The author gets a nudge by email.