Starting a Fire in a Rainforest 

You won’t be in the jungle for long before before you’ll be saying “They don’t call it a rainforest for nothing”.

Rain is a common occurence and even if it’s not raining right now it’s likely to soon or things are still damp from the last time.

Typically the usual traveller to such exotic locales will take some form of gas or petrol stove – and in national parks you shouldn’t be starting fires anyway. Sometimes though, perhaps as a signalling fire, you may need to start a conventional wood fire. The problem is that all the wood is damp, as is everything else nearby.

Kindling

Now we could talk of specifc plants that retain dry fluffy stuff inside that makes great kindling but there’s an easier way to produce some flammable fluffy stuff – with your knife.

Even a green springy damp stick will do for this.

Just take your good sharp knife that you DID remember to bring and run the blade down the stick at 90 degrees. That is to say so that the blade and the stick create a ‘T’ shape, not slanted so that the blade cuts into the stick or simply rubbing it. Create a perfect T.

Do this right and you’ll see a very thin slither of wood peeling off as a shaving. 

These thin slithers will usually curl up and after a few downward strokes you’ll soon have a little fluffy pile of debris that will easily catch light, even with a standard flint striker.

You can actually buy little tubs of dry wood shavings for just this kind of purpose, usually impregnanated with some oil or similar fuel to ensure a long hot burn and a started fire. When you don’t have anything like that you’ll appreciate this little tip!