How to Make Fire with Flash Tinders

Flash tinders are extremely fine materials that instantly ignite when a spark is thrown on them. While they ignite very easily, they don't burn long at all, so it's important to have dry kindling ready to catch that initial flame. I'm Chad Zuber and I've been practicing primitive survival skills for more than 10 years in North America, Central America, Brazil, Spain, and the Caribbean. There's a lot of content on this channel, so be sure to subscribe because I'm always working on new videos. Some common flash tinders are cattail and cottonwood fluff and dandelion and thistle seed heads, but they aren't all equal. In fact, some can still be difficult to light. In this video, I'm going to test out several different flash tinders with sparks from a ferro rod so we can see how they rank in performance. Cattails are common wetland areas around much of the world. They grow in dense clusters on the fringes of waterways where the roots can always reach moist earth. In the fall, they produce the familiar cigar-shaped spikes full of densely packed seeds attached to fine hairs. When pulled apart, the fine hairs unpack, expand, and are dispersed with the wind. This is called cattail fluff and can be used as a substitute for a kapok, which we will discuss later. This cattail fluff can be used to insulate buildings or even as stuffing between two fabrics to make a warm blanket or clothing. Once I used it to stuff a pillow I had made from cattail leaves and natural yarn, it also can be used as a flash tinder. After removing a stem, I can pull apart some of the fluff. By carefully positioning my ferro rod, I can throw sparks into the fluff and it instantly produces a small flame. However, that flame quickly burns out. This is why it is important to be ready with a secondary tinder of dry grass or other material to feed the initial flame and create a sustainable fire. Some species of plants produce fluffy seed heads like this Clematis lesiantha that grows near my hut. The long vines grow through other bushes and trees, often giving the perception that the vine is actually the tree. They form flowers in the spring that then turn into feathery seed heads that can easily be gathered and used to spark a fire. As with other flash tinders, it is important to have secondary tinder ready to catch the initial flame. I'm using primarily dry twigs of black sage because black sage has a low ignition point and readily takes a flame. In the jungles of Central and South America grows a huge tree with wide extending branches that produce beautiful flowers followed by large green seed pods that dry and eventually open up to disperse cotton-like material with seeds that are carried far away by the wind. I am speaking about the Ceiba tree. The people of the Maya civilization revered this tree as a connection between the underworld, the terrestrial world, and the sky. The Ceiba tree is even the national tree of Guatemala. There are about 21 different species of Ceiba trees and they are all native to the Americas. The fluff produced in the seed pods is called capok. This capok is extremely soft and extremely flammable. Native tribes use it as stuffing and to wrap around their blowgun darts to create pressure when blowing the darts through the blowgun. Of all the flash tinders I've used, capok is my favorite. It is more flammable and burns longer than the others. It also looks amazing when observed up close. It's like electrical currents traveling along the individual fibers. As with other flash tinders, it's important to have a secondary tinder that can catch the flame and burn longer. Capok can be used even after being submerged in water. Depending on weather conditions, it can dry quickly and successfully turn a spark into a flame. So why even bother with flash tinders when you need other tinders to turn it into a fire anyway? That's a good question. Often it is very difficult to find grass or other dry fiber material that will readily catch a spark and create a flame. Many times I have spent a good portion of my ferro rod trying to get a bundle of dry grass to burn. The flash tinders are often just more reliable and they can save the frustration of repeatedly striking at the ferro rod unsuccessfully. This will also extend the life of the ferro rod. I've heard that hair could be used as a flash tinder also, so I gathered hair from three different animals so I could give it a try and see what happens. This is human hair. In fact, it's my hair. Will it catch a spark? Let's find out. It almost caught fire. It was close, but not quite good enough. Smells like burnt hair, but it failed. This is Rufo hair. He's my family's dog. He's been in several of my videos in the past. You may have seen him. Will his hair catch fire? Let's find out. That smells really bad. Well, Rufo's hair almost caught a flame, but it burned out right away. So after repeated strikes, it did not produce a flame. Therefore, it does not qualify as a good flash tinder. This is bison hair. It's more coarse than the other hairs I just tried, and so I doubt that it will work. The bison hair performed the worst of the three. I think because it's more coarse, it didn't catch a flame at all. Not even a sign of a flame. It barely even smelled. So the few fibers that were hit by sparks, they hardly even burned. So it didn't work. Tested all three hairs, bison, Rufo, and mine. Not a single one produced a flame that could ignite tinder, so it didn't work. But that doesn't mean that other hairs from other animals won't work as well. If you have experience using hair as a flash tinder, please let me know in the comments. Often, I will experiment with random materials I find along the way. For instance, this mature puffball mushroom is full of brown dry spores that easily disperse in the breeze. Can a spark cause it to ignite? Let's find out. I guess not. As is the case with everything in the wilderness, location, weather, and time of year can all affect availability of resources. That is why I always gather and save useful materials when I find them. What I've shown in this video are natural materials that can be found in the wilderness and used as flash tinders. Of course, there are also commercially available products that can massively facilitate the making of a fire. Pro Camp Tech makes these fire starting products that work in all weather conditions, even when wet. Their ultimate fire tinder works just like the natural tinders, but it's formulated to burn a lot longer. But if you run out of product, it's a good idea to be familiar with natural sources of tinder in the wilderness.