Expert Fire Starting: No Matches Needed

When venturing into the wilderness or preparing for emergencies, knowing how to start a fire without modern tools like matches or lighters is a vital survival skill. Fire provides warmth, a way to cook food, purify water, signal for help, and ward off predators, but you may not always have access to matches or lighters. Listed below are several time-tested and creative methods to ignite a fire without the convenience of modern fire ignition tools. Specifically, we’ll cover friction fire starting, using mirrors and lenses, and battery-based ignition techniques.

1. Friction Fire Starting Methods

Friction-based fire starting is one of the oldest and most primal techniques. It is also one of the single most reliably available methods of starting a fire when you don’t have any matches. The general concept behind any friction fire is to use the heat generated by rubbing two hard surfaces together to ignite an ember which you can add to tinder and nurture to a flame. Some people frequently describe it as rubbing two sticks together to start a fire, but there is a bit more to it than that simple statement. It requires physical effort, patience, and the right materials to successfully start a fire.

Here are three of the most effective friction methods:

Bow Drill

The bow drill is one of the most reliable friction firestarting methods once mastered. It uses a “bow” to rotate a spindle against a fireboard, creating enough friction to produce an ember.

What You Need:

Drill: A straight, dry stick (softwoods like cedar or willow work best). Aim for a stick about 6 inches long, blunt on one end and tapered to a point on the other
Fireboard: A flat piece of wood with a notch to catch the ember. Sometimes also called a hearth board.
Bow: A curved stick with a taut cord attached to each end. The stick should be about an inch thick and rigid (not flexing too much).
Cordage: Paracord, rope, shoelace, animal sinews, rawhide strip, etc.
Socket: A small piece of wood or stone. Use the hardest wood you can find, relatively flat with a small divet to hold the spindle. You can eaily split a small piece of hardwood branch and carve a small indentation with your knife to make a socket.
Tinder: Small dry bark and grass fibers that will ignite easily. Make a bundle that resembles a bird’s nest.

How to Use:

Build the bow. Find a stick about the length of your arm with a slight bend in it. A shorter bow stick will work if that is all that is available, but shorter bows will require more effort and energy. Anything longer than your arm will also work, but the extra length will just needlessly add to the weight and make things more difficult. Tie a piece of cordage to one end and then tie the other end of the cordage to the other end. Paracord is my preferred cordage for this, but you can use just about any rope, strong string, or shoelace.
Prepare your fireboard. Select a flat piece of dry, dead wood. Alternatively, you can split a piece of dead wood with a hatchet and then split again parallel to the original split. Carve a small indentation on the fireboard with your knife.
Prepare the drill. If you cannot find a stick with the correct size and shape, use a knife to carve the drill. Make sure you strip the bark off the drill. Wrap the drill in the bowstring by placing it perpendicular to the bow string and twisting it so the bowstring is wrapped once around the drill.
Place the tapered end of the drill in the notch in the fireboard and the blunt end vertical. Hold the socket in your non-dominent hand (left hand for right handed people and right hand for you southpaws) and apply downward pressure to the drill, holding it in place. Placing a couple of green leaves in the socket’s divet can help lubricate the connection, making the next step slightly easier.
Let’s talk about your positioning for a second, because that can make this process easier or impossibly difficult. I recommend that you be on one knee at this point. You can use your foot to hold the fireboard in position on the ground and lean your body weight onto the socket and drill to hold them in place. Try to keep your torso as straight as reasonably possible to allow you to breathe as freely as you can.
Hold the bow in your dominant hand and push it away from your body and then pull it back to your body to rotate the drill. Start with a few long, slow pulls to make sure the system is working correctly and that the drill will not slip. Push and pull the bow faster to rotate the drill faster to clearly mark the indentation you are drilling into with burn marks.
Stop drilling momentarily and carve a “v” shape notch from the edge of the fireboard to the middle of the indentation you have been drilling into.
Resume the drilling and continue this motion to build up significant heat to form the ember, this will takes several minutes of intense exertion.
Smoke will start to rise as a small ember forms. The ember should drop through the v shaped notch to the bark or leaf you placed below it. Gently transfer the ember to your prepared tinder bundle and gently blow until it ignites. Add kindling and then fuel until you have your desired fire size.

The main downsides to a bow drill is that it requires practice to master, you have to have the right materials, and requires a significant physical effort and calorie expenditure.

Hand Drill

The hand drill requires fewer materials but harder physically than the bow drill. The general idea and concept are basically the same, there just is not a bow to rotate the drill. Instead, you use your hands directly to rotate the drill.

What You Need:

Drill: A straight, dry stick (softwoods like cedar or willow work best). Aim for a stick about 6 inches long (or longer if you have larger hands), blunt on one end and tapered to a point on the other
Fireboard: Similar to the bow drill.
Tinder: Small dry bark and grass fibers that will ignite easily. Make a bundle that resembles a bird’s nest.

How to Use:

Prepare your fireboard. This process is the same as for the bow drill. Select a flat piece of dry, dead wood. Alternatively, you can split a piece of dead wood with a hatchet and then split again parallel to the original split. Carve a small indentation on the fireboard with your knife.
Prepare the drill. This step is also the same as it was for the bow drill. If you cannot find a stick with the correct size and shape, use a knife to carve the drill. Make sure you strip the bark off the drill. Wrap the drill in the bowstring by placing it perpendicular to the bow string and twisting it so the bowstring is wrapped once around the drill.
Place the drill on the fireboard, tapered side in the notch. Place your hands on either side of the drill with the drill touching both palms.
Roll the drill between your hands while pressing downward. Start slowly at first, but pick up speed to roll the drill as quickly as you are able while still applying downward pressure. You will likely have to readjust your hands as you go, do this as quickly as possible to reduce the loss of heat during this brief break in spinning. Maintain your speed and pressure until you have burned a mark in your indentation.
Stop drilling momentarily and carve a “v” shape notch from the edge of the fireboard to the middle of the indentation you have been drilling into.
Resume the drilling and continue this motion to build up significant heat to form the ember, this will takes several minutes of intense exertion.
Smoke will start to rise as a small ember forms. The ember should drop through the notch to the bark or leaf you placed below it. Gently transfer the ember to your prepared tinder bundle and gently blow until it ignites. Add kindling and then fuel until you have your desired fire size.

The main downside to the hand drill method of firestarting is it is very physically demanding, especially for beginners. Most areas where a hand drill is possible will also have the materials needed for a bow and socket as well, so the hand drill should only be utilized when you don’t have any cordage for the bow.

Fire Plough

The fire plough method uses a piece of hardwood scraped along a groove in a softer wood. Not as good as the bow drill, but a better option than the hand drill.

What You Need:

Plough Stick: A hardwood stick, as straight as you can find. About 6-8 inches long
Fireboard: A softwood board with a carved groove.
Tinder: Small dry bark and grass fibers that will ignite easily. Make a bundle that resembles a bird’s nest.

How to Use:

Prepare the fireboard. Split a branch of a softwood tree down the middle with an axe or a hatchet, or find a similar piece of wood that is long and flat on one side. With your knife, carve a small path the plough stick can follow. The path should go off the edge of the fireboard. The plow stick will make the path bigger and deeper forming a groove as you work, so you only have to make this path big enough and deep enough to start.
Place your tinder bundle at the end of the fireboard where the path you carved goes off the edge of the fireboard.
Rub the plough stick vigorously up and down the path you carved with your knife. Hold the plough stick at about a 45 degree angle to the fireboard as you move it back and forth. You should be pressing firmly into the groove. The friction from rubbing the plough stick repeatedly through this groove creates wood dust that eventually ignites from the heat generated by the friction, forming the ember.
Gently transfer the ember to your prepared tinder bundle at the edge of the fireboard and gently blow until it ignites. Add kindling and then fuel until you have your desired fire size.

The main downside to the fire plough method is that, like the hand drill, it requires considerable strength and stamina to form the ember.

2. Starting a Fire with a Mirror

Using a mirror to start a fire relies on the sun’s rays. A highly polished surface can concentrate sunlight into a focused point hot enough to ignite tinder. For best results use a concave mirror to focus the reflected sunlight to a single point. I have tried using a normal flat mirror, but have never been able to get it to focus enough sunlight to start tinder on fire.

What You Need:

Mirror: A concave mirror.
Bright Sunlight
Tinder: Small dry bark and grass fibers that will ignite easily. Make a bundle that resembles a bird’s nest.

How to Use:

Hold the mirror in direct sunlight.
Angle the mirror so the focused beam of light falls on the tinder.
Keep the beam steady until smoke appears and the tinder begins to smolder. Depending on the strength of the sunlight, your tinder, and how steady your hand is, you should start to see smoke within about 30 seconds.
Blow gently and fold the tinder around the ember to encourage ignition. Add kindling and then fuel until you have your desired fire size.

The main downside to using a mirror to start a fire is that you have to use a mirror very few people will have on hand and it depends on the amount of sunlight you have available.

3. Starting a Fire with a Lens

Much like a mirror, a lens can concentrate sunlight to start a fire. This is often easier than using a mirror, especially with convex lenses. A convex lens will gather up all the sunlight across its surface area and funnel it to a single point on the other side of the lens. Some glasses may work for this, but most modern glasses are made to not start fires and will not usually work. A magnifying glass lens will usually be your best bet, but some reading glasses may still work.

What You Need:

Magnifying Lens: Magnifying glass, reading glasses, or even a camera lens.
Sunlight
Tinder: Small dry bark and grass fibers that will ignite easily. Make a bundle that resembles a bird’s nest.

How to Use:

Hold the lens between the sun and the tinder. Adjust the distance until the sunlight forms the smallest, brightest dot on the tinder.
Hold the lens steady. Depending on the strength of the sunlight, your tinder, and how steady your hand is, you should start to see smoke within about 30 seconds.
Wait for smoke, then gently fold the tinder on the ember and blow on the ember until the tinder ignites. Add kindling and then fuel until you have your desired fire size.

The main downside to using a lens to start a fire is, like the mirror sirestarting method, it is completely dependent on sunlight available.

Bonus Tip: A clear plastic bottle can also function as a lens. Make sure the plastic bottle has a smooth rounded top, with little to no texturing. The light will bend and refract through the water, sometimes focusing to a single point through the curved top of the bottle. Any movement in the water will change the refraction point, however, so you will have to find a spot to place the bottle if the sunlight is a little weaker or if the tinder does not catch quickly. You can also get the same effect with a clear plastic bag filled with water.

4. Starting a Fire Using a Battery

Batteries can produce enough heat to ignite tinder if short-circuited properly. The general idea is to get an electrical current running through an exposed piece of metal. The electrical current will put off a sigificant amount of heat that can be used to ignite the tinder. This method can be a lifesaver when modern electronics are available.

Battery and Aluminum

What You Need:

Charge battery: AA, AAA, C, D, 9V, or even phone batteries.
Conductive material: Aluminum foi works best, which can be found in the wrapping material for many food items such as hamburgers, tacos, burritos, and even sticks of gum.
Tinder

How to Use:

Flatten the aluminum foil as much as possible. Use your knife to cut a thin strip no wider than you pinky or the width of the battery, whichever is smaller. If possible, make the strip slightly thinner in the middle where the tinder will touch the foil (this funnels all the current to one spot, creating a higher temperature).
Touch both ends of the foil strip to the battery. One end should go on the positive terminal and one on the negative terminal. This may be harder to identify on something like a cell phone battery.
Touch the narrowest part of the foil strip to your tinder and hold until it ignites. If using foil that has paper on one side, like gum wrappers do, the paper will likely also ignite so you should leave your foil in the tinder as well. Fold the tinder over the ember and blow gently. Add kindling and then fuel until you have your desired fire size.

The main downside to this method is that it is a relatively dangerous method of starting a fire. The aluminum foil will get extremely hot very quickly and can burn your fingertips.

Battery and Lightbulb

If you don’t have aluminum foil or a gum wrapper, you can use a lightbulb to create the necessary heat to start your fire.

What You Need:

9v battery
Incandescent light bulb: Strip should be narrow in the middle.

How to Use:

Carefully break the glass casing of the light bulb. Broken glass can be dangerous, so use the utmost caution to safely dispose of the broken glass and to make sure no shards fly into your eyes during the breaking.
Hold the bottom of the lightbulb to both the positive and negative terminals on the 9v battery while the tungsten filament is touching your tinder. The filament will rapidly heat up, and could burn out quickly since it is exposed to oxygen, so do not tough the battery to the bulb until you are absolutely ready.
Fold the tinder over the ember and blow gently. Add kindling and then fuel until you have your desired fire size.

The main downside to this method is the likelihood of having both a charged 9v battery and incandescent light bulb on hand when you need them. The broken glass is something you definitely need to account for as well.

Final Thoughts

Learning to start a fire without matches or lighters not only prepares you for emergencies but deepens your connection to nature and your own resourcefulness. Whether you’re mastering the bow drill, harnessing the power of the sun, or improvising with a battery, practice and preparation are key. Experiment with these methods in safe, controlled environments before relying on them in the field. With time, you’ll develop the confidence and skill to create fire no matter the circumstances. If you are struggling to start a fire with one of these methods, check out our fire starting basics to make sure you know what makes a fire go.

Safety Reminders

Never leave a fire unattended.
Always have water or dirt nearby to extinguish the fire.
Fully douse and stir the ashes when you’re done to prevent wildfires.

Learning how to make a campfire is only one of the skills you will need to master the outdoors. Make sure to check out our skills page for tips on everything you need to know.

Adventure begins at the Edge