Fire Starter

These firestarters are for sale at the Portland Saturday Market. One time when I asked my Dad what his favorite booth at the market was, he said it was the The Strike Master Survival Tool.

Basically the metal stick is a piece of magnesium with a flint on one side. Magnesium burns at 5400degrees F, making it possible to ignite in just about any circumstance.

The way it works is you scrape some magnesium shavings into a pile using the blue scraper, place some tinder on the magnesium shavings (you can even scrape the "tinder" from the wooden handle! this tool is all-in-one!) and then set the flint directly into the tinder and scrape the flint. The sparks will ignite the magnesium which will get the tinder burning, you can even use green or damp tinder. Really.

Here's a video of Charlie demonstrating his firestarters at the Portland Saturday Market. This booth is a staple of the market, the business was first started by Charlie's father, and continued thru the generations. Charlie is currently the head of the Portland Saturday Market board. Next time you are at the Portland Saturday Market you'll have to stop by and check them out, he sells a key-chain version which makes for impromptu fun :)

I love these fire-starters. Perhaps I am just a sucker for anything that lets me play with fire!