Introduction: Emergency Campfire Starter

By bizydad
About: I'm a Special Education Teacher with 7 kids. I use donated and salvaged tech to teach STEM with my students and kids. Someday I'll get all of my projects posted up. For now, it's nonstop DIY, teaching and doin…

I went camping and found myself 10 miles from the nearest camp store and with wet logs (thanks to a sudden storm). I had neglected to bring any lighter fluid and needed to find a way to get a campfire going. I began to scavenge our supplies for what i could find, knowing I needed some form of oil and alcohol.


This is much safer than siphoning gasoline from your car, which I do not suggest you try. (no I didn't try it first :)

Step 1: Materials

  • obviously fire wood ..haha
  • bacon grease or cooking oil (used or new)
  • some form of light fuel (alcohol, lighter fluid, hand sanitizer)
  • matches/lighter

Step 2: Steps

  • Stack your wood how you like. I started with a little dry wood stacked into a box shape. I dropped a piece of burning toilet paper into the center to light it.
  • For large logs, don't waste time trying to cut them short, just lay the middle over the fire and let the fire do the work for you.
  • Mix your grease/oil with about 1/2 ounce of hand sanitizer or other form of alcohol. I suggest using fresh cooking oil, if possible. The bacon grease and used oil work just as well, but they create dark smoke that really soaks the smell into your clothing. Don't worry about the smell attracting bears, if you cooked bacon for breakfast they are already there.
  • Dip a small piece of toilet paper into the mixture and set aside.
  • Pour half of your mixture onto your stack ready to be lit and the rest on the longer wet logs.
  • Place the wet logs around your fire so that he heat will help dry them out a little
  • Use the toilet paper to ignite your fire.

Step 3: What's the Point?

Why bother with all this? The cooking oil burns for a long time and allows the wet wood to finally dry out and burn. However, it is very difficult to actually ignite on it's own. Hand sanitizer ignites very well, but will not last as long. This gives you a good mixture for a long-lasting fuel that lights well in a pinch.

I'm sure there are other methods to this and even products you can buy. But if you need to come up with something out of what you have on you, it works really well.