My youngest son and his friends headed up to the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina to go camping. Once they arrived they set up the tent and then it was time to get the campfire going. ‘Who has the lighter? No one!?! Can’t find the matches? How about a car lighter?’ Zip! (and I don’t mean Zippo!). Who would have thought this could happen?!! Well… sometimes it does, and fortunately, my son knew the solution. He has helped me on many occasions to capture images for survivaltek articles and has been privy to many of my techniques. So with the assistance of his friends, he was able to employ the firecraft method demonstrated in “Jumper Cable Campfire” to save the day.

It was a rainy day so they had to use an umbrella to keep the tinder dry and they decided to run the engine to support their battery during the pencil heating process. The time from clamping the pencil to producing a flame took less than 1 1/2 minutes. They transported the initial flame over to the campfire ring where they proceeded to build their campfire for the day.

I am proud of their achievement and was delighted that they captured it by video using a cell phone for our enjoyment. Click on the photo to watch the video… it’s amazing!