Do you use newspapers in your fireplace at home? If you have a fireplace or stove or simply build lots of campfires, then you know how helpful black and white pages of newspapers can be when starting a fire.
There are other easy options that you probably have laying around the home as well. Most of them can easily be tucked in to your camping gear and used as campfire starters for the whole time you’re out. You won’t have to buy any commercial products made specifically for that purpose and can use what you have available instead.
Crumpled paper products
If you have scrap paper, newspapers, toilet paper rolls and paper towel tubes lying around in your home, these are very good items for starting fires. This is because dry paper is very instrumental in campfire building. In fact, you can also use crumpled balls of paper as insulation in clothing while camping though we don’t expect you’ll be camping in weather that cold.
Cotton gauze
If you have a first aid kit in your house, you can carry the paper wrapped cotton gauze in it for starting a fire because of its inflammable properties. It’s a nice, dry fabric and the open weave allows it to breath which oxygenates the flames.
Plant-based cloths
If you have any linen, dry cotton, or any other plant-fiber cloths to bring with you, you can use them for starting a fire when you have limited resources to get that first spark going. Simply, you should tear off the strips of the plant-based cloths to burn and not use them all at once.
Dryer lint
Generally, this dusty fluff is usually very flammable because it’s mainly made up of cotton fibers. When you go camping, you can carry dryer lint as a homemade firestarter and use it when it is dry. Some people tuck it inside a toilet paper tube and drizzle some wax into it as well. It will easily light with an open flame or with sparks.
LIghting a campfire isn’t too hard once you get the hang of it. Most of the skill is in knowing what materials to use when getting it started.