Flint and Steel Fire using green Willow as tinder

Description

Going directly from fresh green willows to fire using flint and steel became a quest of mine after reading a story of an ancestor of mine who did it in an emergency. I wanted to see if it was even possible or if it was more of a legend than truth. As you can see in the uncut footage, I almost lost the attempt several times. I used a Strike A Light from Emberlit as my steel striker. Links http://www.emberlit.com/en/emberlit-strike-a-light-eagle-feather

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Tags: Flint (Rock Type),steel striker,green willow tinder,survival training,history,John Lowry,Southern Utah Exploring Expedition,1849,Fire Striker,Steel (Material),Tinder

Video Transcription

alright here's my shavings from Green willow it's still I shaved them out it's still a little bit damp but I'm going to see if I can get this thing started here and i'm using i'm using a strike a light or spark i I feel bad it's from merck where's the little spark their little sparker for flint and steel so now I'm just going to put this all up inside here got it going here keep in mind this is green willow you

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there we have it fire from Green willow I cut it I cut this stuff right from the flu ah hot hot hot I cut this stuff right here from the from the spring right here green you can see you get up here look closer I keep from burning myself here it's pretty stinkin hot use my knife my camera battery is about out there we go right there fire from with flint and steel with the sparkle Sparkle aight from Ember lit and green willows where I just scraped the cut them fresh right there at the spring and I cut them cut them right off there and obviously if I had obviously if I had something to put it into I just wanted to see if I could get a flame off of them but absolutely it's doable sometimes I've been trying to prove from one of my ancestors who got stranded in a wintertime Blizzard snowshoeing across a mountain pass and they got into a place where the only thing there was was willows and he started a fire with flint and steel with green willows they in the record it says they scraped green willow bark in plenty of it into a big pile East and they were able to get it going with flint and steel 10 below zero in the wintertime now I have to try it in the winter time but I do know now that it is doable that fire is possible from with flint and steel from from Green will I mean see how green this stuff was it was I left it out for about after I scraped it for about 30 minutes to see if it had dry some and it was still damp when I started which is why I took a little while to really get it going because this stuff was still I could still feel the dampness but I wanted to go ahead and try it and and it does work it's very happy excitement and so i'll try and nassau I'll keep working on this I get this thing perfected now so this is a I'm standing in a spring right here here's a nice green willow that will use to strip out for starting fire with green willow bark okay so so basically what we do you if you want to have a good keen edge on your knife and we just start by making strokes like this and this first stuff i save kind of separate it's the the actual green bark itself so i save that out kind of separate you can see that right there and we just leave that to dry for just a little bit and then that meanwhile then i take this cambium see this little get right up here close this little cambium layer right here first layer so what i'm doing here see how find them thin that scrapes out now here again you do have to have a nice nice sharp edge on your knife to do this but anyway so this is how you get the shavings to start your fire with flint and steel using green and you can see how green that says green willow and you just keep scraping until till you get a good double handful she got have enough so that when it gets started it's a little hard to get started blowing into there so you got out plenty of it but but that's that's how we get our pile so to to strike this off I use this I use this cord right here and this Court is actually we have a whole bunch of it it's actually court that's fire so you can get it to glow and to make a nice hot coal but it'll never burst in a flame and then I use these I think they're called strike lights by M berlet because going to kill me for not knowing the name but but if i have the i have several of them that he gave me that i got from him and this one has a little neck I put a little bank line in there for neck lanyard so this is the feather and this is a trout so you can go to ember lit and get you some get you some nice fancy little less striking steals and have a little bit of fun out there man it's a blast perry peacock wilderness innovation just horsing around here trying to prove a little something out of one of my ancestors from the mid 1800s they were x exploration party got stranded just trying to prove the record here that that you could do this literal youth greenwillow when I scraping these scrapings it was hard to even hold on to the willow cuz so gooey and slippery and slimy I mean that's how that's how wet and sloppy it was but it does work I'm very very excited perry peacock wilderness innovation have a great day