Make a “Matchless” Survival Fire Kit

if you’re in a survival situation and
it’s windy outside matches can be
extremely unreliable and they certainly
won’t light a fire when they’re wet so
in this project let’s try using a bit of
backyard science to take the trouble out
of lighting your tinder because with
this special mix the tinder lights
itself let’s begin this project with the
soda cap container we made in a previous
project they’re lightweight cheap to
make and amazingly useful so look for
how to build them in another video now
our matchless fire starter is about as
simple as mixing two chemicals together
potassium permanganate and a bit of
glycerin these items are sometimes found
in survival kits already because of
their healing properties and water
treatment abilities but mix them
together and it opens up a whole new
world of possibilities
this purple product is sold commercially
as a rejuvenator for certain types of
water filters and I found mine in the
water treatment section of a pool supply
store now it might look like a harmless
black sand but it’s actually a powerful
oxidizer this stuff can be poisonous and
burn your skin so just make sure you’re
well aware of the risks before you try
handling it some people have used it for
disinfecting water making any septic
solutions providing antifungal treatment
for hands and feet and making emergency
signals on snow now I loaded up one half
of my container using a spoon and a
funnel and that seemed to work pretty
well to prevent spills now let’s screw
the cap back on nice and tight so the
powder is locked in securely where it
should be kept safe and dry alright now
we can add the glycerin to the other
side I found this bottle at a local
Super Center but they can be found just
as easily at drug craft and baking
stores as well glycerin is typically
used as a moisturizer in creams and
lotions but it has some really cool uses
for first-aid and survival situations as
well some people have used it to relieve
insect bites sunburns chemical burns and
some even say it works as a mild
mosquito and ant repellent you may have
noticed I color-coded the ends of my
container with different caps and that’s
to help identify which chemicals are in
which end since the container is made
out of bottle caps it’s completely water
resistant so everything stays dry even
if the container gets completely
submerged in water not only is a
waterproof and
credibly small but even when it’s fully
loaded the whole thing weighs a mere one
ounce or about 29 grams chances are that
small and light enough to be added to
any type of day pack without making any
noticeable difference now let’s go on a
little trip to the mountains to see how
this reacts when we mix the two
chemicals together first we’ll need to
open the black side because that’s the
end with a potassium permanganate now
since I was down by the river anyway I
thought this might be a good time to
experiment with disinfecting water all
it takes is a very small pinch of
potassium permanganate crystals in a
liter of water to begin the disinfecting
process you can see when the crystals
hit the water they turn a deep purple
but if we put the lid on and mix it all
around the water should turn to a nice
light pink the saying is as long as it’s
pink it’s probably okay to drink just
make sure it’s not purple and you should
be alright
okay let’s carefully pour the grains on
a flat surface like a rock or a piece of
wood and I’m using about half the
container for this demonstration now
it’s a good idea to push a little
indentation into the center of the pile
so when we pour the glycerin on top
it’ll be held neatly in place right in
the center these next few seconds feel
like nothing is happening but make sure
you’ve got some dry leaves twigs and
other lightweight kindling gathered up
because when this reaction happens it’s
gonna happen fast it can take anywhere
up to a minute to notice anything
changing but if you look closely now you
should start to see the glycerin soaking
down into the powder and starting to
smoke make sure you’ve got your dry
leaves ready because the heat and smoke
will continue to build rapidly until the
pile spontaneously bursts into flames
let’s go ahead and gently set our leaves
and sticks over top and you should be
able to see how quickly the flames begin
to build now if you’ve left a little gap
at the bottom for air to get in your
matchless survival fire should continue
to build quickly on its own without
having to put in any extra effort
congratulations you’ve just started a
fire without matches and now that you’ve
got a healthy flame why don’t you try
making yourself a batch of char cloth
this stuff is another must-have for
emergency fire starting and it’s so
sensitive to heat you can easily start
future fires with your water bottle so
look for the video on how to make char
cloth as well now whatever you do don’t
ever mix glycerin directly into the same
compartment as the potassium
permanganate
I tried screwing the lid back on to seal
out any oxygen
the potassium permanganate is still
strong enough oxidizer to start the
reaction and like any airtight container
holding a rapidly expanding gas it’s
eventually gonna blow so if you want to
err on the side of caution and avoid any
unnecessary messes feel free to store
your ingredients in completely separate
containers well now you know how to take
two very different but very useful
emergency kit items and mix them
together to get an awesome synergistic
benefit the matchless survival fire if
you liked this project perhaps you’ll
like some of my others check them out at
the king of random calm thanks again for
watching another one of my videos all
the way to the end this one was actually
collaboration with another YouTube
channel based out of Canada called
cottage life it’s two brothers that have
made a commitment to do an outdoor
project every month and if you like my
projects I really think you’re gonna
like theirs as well they’re just
learning as they go but the episodes are
really well produced and they’ve already
made a few videos like how to make beer
bottle glasses and a floating dock
that’s actually really cool so go check
out some of their projects and let them
know that grant Thompson sent to you you
might want to think about subscribing to
keep up with some of their future
episodes as well thanks for supporting
my videos and I’ll see you in the next
one with some more random acts of
science in the meantime I’ll be looking
for you down in the comments we’ll see
you there