I will confess to an obsession with the ability to start a fire in adverse conditions. It’s just basic survival.

Most of us have heard of the three basics of survival being food, clothing, and shelter. All of these are certainly the critical deliverables, but I’m adding fire to the list when conditions become cold, wet, or both.

Two events in particular have cemented this on my skill-set priority list.

The first occurred during a duck hunt on the Tennessee River in January 1982, when we were caught at 4 AM by driving rain and sleet and heavy waves. Our boat was nearly swamped. Had we gone in the water without the ability to build a fire and assuming we could make it to shore without drowning, we would have rapidly succumbed to hypothermia.

We had one smoker on board, but all he had were wet matches by the time we gained a sheltered cove.

Duck hunters by their very nature have to be a little bit crazy to be in a heavily burdened 16-foot boat long before daybreak on open water in subfreezing conditions. We all loved it, but I wasn’t willing to die for it.

After this incident, during which we suffered because we were unable to build a survival fire, I bought a Zippo lighter and began carrying it on all outdoor adventures.

The second event occurred over 25 years later when my wife and I were camping on Mt. Mitchell in North Carolina, the highest peak east of the Rocky Mountains. Snowfall has been recorded on Mt. Mitchell every month of the year historically and conditions that rapidly change are the norm.

It was October, and no sooner had we made camp than a thick fog and a steady drizzle moved in and the temperature dropped to 35 degrees.

We had wood and tinder but everything was so wet that my Zippo lighter couldn’t get a fire going. We were freezing.

Fortunately, camped about 30 yards away from us were three U.S. Army Special Forces guys from Ft. Bragg. They saw and heard our struggles and came over to offer help in the form of a MAPP gas torch that had a fire blazing in five minutes. Those SpecOp guys sure know how to get things done…

Unfortunately, carrying a MAPP gas torch in your pack is not practical for most of us.

Since then, I have visited the Science Museum Group in the UK, and one of its facilities has a remarkable collection of fire-making tools that man has used throughout history. One of the oldest is the percussion method of striking flint or hard rock against iron or other type of mineral, creating a hot spark that ignites dry tinder. It is an amazing collection.

Otzi’, the natural mummy of a man who lived roughly 5,300 years ago in the Otztal Alps in Austria, and his artifacts have been exhibited at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, Italy, since the late 1990s. He was found with flint, iron pyrites, and a collection of different plants for tinder as part of his kit for building fire.

Taking inspiration from the past as well as the advantages of modern technology, my ultimate solution for fire-starting now is a self-contained Ferrocerium rod and striker cap, as well as a tiny little pencil sharpener from Germany made of magnesium alloy.

Ferrocerium, discovered in 1903 by Austrian scientist Carl Auer von Welsbach, is an alloy that creates a huge spark when being scratched. Both it and magnesium in the presence of oxygen burn at approximately 5,500 degrees Fahrenheit.

Using the pencil sharpener, you can take twigs the diameter of a #2 pencil and rapidly produce shavings and then add slivers of magnesium shaved with a knife from the sharpener itself to the tinder. Strike the resulting mix with a ferro rod and, voila, fire!

The ferro rod and pencil sharpener in my left pocket, along with an old film canister of cotton balls soaked in petroleum jelly, weigh roughly an eighth of the Swiss Army knife in my right pocket and are capable of starting fire in most any condition.

Horace Kephart, in his early 1900s book Camping and Woodcraft, emphasizes the importance of having the ability and methods to create fire in adverse conditions if you frequent truly remote places. Had I read that book in my teens instead of waiting another 40 years to discover it, I would have been better equipped to weather some of the storms I’ve encountered while fulfilling my obsession with exploring wild places.

Readers are leaders, as they say…

Stay warm, my friends, and be prepared.