DIY Fire Starters

I had a bunch of random items in my recycling bins and wanted to find something useful I could make at home with them.  I came across some sites that mentioned homemade fire starters and thought this would be a fantastic project . The Boy had mentioned the difficulty his scout patrol would have in keeping a flame going long enough to catch all the campfire kindling on fire. A DIY Firestarter would keep a flame for a long while enabling someone to have plenty of time to get a campfire going.

I gathered up all my materials one day and set to work making some homemade fire starters.

All you need to make homemade fire starters are recycled paper egg cartons, some wax and a few combustible items (I just used dryer lint, empty toilet paper tubes and the lids of the egg cartons (torn into shreds). I was worried I wouldn't have enough filler material but as it turns out, I had way more than enough!

Fill your egg cartons with combustible material:

Pour melted wax over your combustible materials. You don't need to submerge everything in the wax. You just need enough wax to just hold everything together (and it slows down the burning):

Allow wax to cool. Then cut apart sections.

To use, light a corner of the egg carton. Of course, please use your fire starters with extreme caution!

We put four or five fire starters in a sandwich bag and keep a bag in each of our emergency packs. The rest are stored with our camping gear. Now whenever The Boy goes camping with the scouts, he takes a few fire starters with him.