Three Points of the Compass has usually gone ‘old school’ when lighting stoves. While I have occasionally crossed to the dark side and used a gas lighter, I still find myself promptly returning to something 100% reliable, a ferrocerium rod and striker.
At least three methods of starting a fire should be carried on trail, certainly on longer hikes. This should definitely be the case for a solo backpacker, who cannot necessarily scrounge a light from a fellow hiker. Matches make an ideal cheap and lightweight final back-up while a lighter remains the favourite source of ignition for many. An 11g Mini-Bic is often the preferred type as they are cheap, light and long-lasting. I carry one myself, though that is stored elsewhere in my kit as a back-up. That said, a 20g Torjet is a far more efficient lighter. Before all of these, my favoured method of lighting a stove on trail is a small ferrocerium rod, more commonly known as a ferro rod, less commonly (and incorrectly) called a flint and steel.
- Gear talk: A few grams here, a few grams there… in search of the perfect lighter
- Gear talk: Liquid fuel lighters- IMCO and Zippo lighters, do they have a place on trail?
- Gear talk: matches
Three Points of the Compass prefers a ferro rod for lighting stoves as they are robust and reliable. They are long-lasting, require no replacement parts and will work in almost any conditions. Many people seem to struggle with using them effectively but with a little practise they are simple to use.
Many gas stoves come with a piezo ignitor that, while handy, can sometimes fail. A little gas lighter in reserve could be the difference between getting a hot meal or not. But if that gets wet or it is blowing a bit, then it’ll be a struggle to light the stove. A ferro rod is just so much easier and more reliable.
Striking, or more accurately scraping, a striker against a ferro rod creates friction. This friction drags tiny particles of metal from the rod, converting these to oxides, igniting them and generating a shower of hot sparks that will light a fuel.
Ferrocerium rods are made from a high-quality pyrophoric (liable to ignite) alloy containing metals that include iron, magnesium, lanthanum and cerium. The first and last components are what gives the rod it’s name: ferro (iron) and cerium (the commonest of the lanthanide elements). Beware the low quality ferro rods available, as some use inferior alloy mixes for the ferrocerium rod and sparks can either be difficult to generate or pretty pathetic. The give away indicator for quality is often, but not always, cost. Cheaply made ferro rods are cheap. Better quality ferro rods are more expensive.
To my mind, there is little need to stray from the market leading Light My Fire range, but some other makes are equally as effective, they just take a little finding. It can be an expensive process working through what is available so having found a couple that work well for me, I tend to stay with them. There are no doubt many other decent ferro rods out there that I am unaware of, however it is the size of the rod that is also a deciding factor for me and most advertised ferro rods are quite large, far larger than what I want or require.
For a brief couple of years, I used a 120g Light My Fire Swedish FireKnife. This reasonably priced knife was a collaboration between Light My Fire and Mora and combined a half tang Sandvik 12C27 stainless steel blade with a small but useful Swedish FireSteel stored in the end of the textured plastic handle. The blade is a Scandi grind with a secondary bevel and the FireSteel (ferro rod) is struck against the 90° spine of the blade. The knife is 200mm in length but the ferro rod is short and despite being advertised as producing up to 3000 strikes, actually wears quite quickly (spares are available). Though it is easy to strike and get sparks, it is not the easiest of rods to hold when striking due to the shape of the twist lock with detent that holds the ferro rod into the end of the handle. The plastic sheath with belt clip is a heavy piece of overkill but does hold the knife firmly when sheathed. Sadly, it is too large and heavy for my more modest needs and, more importantly, the 3.5″ fixed blade does not meet UK knife law.
I am sure many bushcrafters would regard this Mora knife with distain, preferring a fixed blade knife with full tang and a much larger ferro rod but it did me for a few camping trips, mostly with family. To keep on using the FireKnife I really needed to be committing to ‘proper’ cooking with real ingredients at a base camp that possibly justified a decent knife for food preparation, or for other work, perhaps preparing feather sticks or similar. It is not a backpacking tool at all. I soon found that it just didn’t suit any form of lightweight solo camping and it has been packed away in a gear box somewhere for the past decade.
I am only using a ferro rod for lighting gas stoves, or alcohol/meths. or multi-fuel stoves burning a liquid, such as Aspen-4. I am not lighting wood fires via tinder and kindling, nor am I engaged in bushcrafting. For those activities you want something a good deal larger and heavier duty than what I favour. But for the lightweight backpacking stoves that I employ, a small ferro rod is all I require. It is light and won’t fail. If it gets dropped in a river or soaked by rain, it will still spark. It’ll continue to make sparks at any altitude and at any temperature I am likely to encounter.
The best small ferro rod I have come across is the 14g Swedish FireSteel Mini from Light My Fire. It has a 4.7mm thick ferro rod that will last years. But for some unfathomable reason, they stopped producing this small tool. It is a variant of the larger and heavier FireSteel Scout and FireSteel Army rods also made by Light My Fire.
Each of the larger Light My Fire ferro rods will do the job well, but are also total overkill for my lightweight backpacking trips and needs. The 38g Scout is advertised as being capable of up to 3000 strikes and the larger 58g Army as producing a whopping 12000. The much smaller Mini is advertised as producing up to 1500 strikes. It is easy to say more is better, but come on, 1500 strikes, how long is it going to take to achieve this? Be realistic about what you are actually requiring of a ferro rod rather than being wowed by large numbers. But, now the Mini seems to have largely gone, if you want a decent rod from a ‘name’, the Light My Fire Scout will more than suffice. And it comes in a far fancier form now, with eco credentials and a whistle.
The 14g weight of my little Mini includes the striker and length of cord holding the two together. I did recently find one seller that had a few but it is very definitely becoming a lot harder to source even old stock.
Once the Mini became difficult to find I looked around for a replacement and settled on the Mini Firesteel from Gram Counter Gear. They state that it is made from 20% iron with small amounts of zinc, magnesium, cerium, lanthanum, neodymium and small amounts of other rare earth elements. This seems to be as good as the Light My Fire products and creates decent sparks. It is even smaller and lighter than the Mini too, and I have used one of these for the past few years as the primary means of lighting a stove on backpacking trips. Ferro rod, striker and supplied cord weigh 14g (though advertised as 17g), the same as the Light My Fire Mini, but I swap the striker to another. At just 40mm x 4mm diameter, this ferro rod is both short and thin, but I have never snapped one, though have had the little rod come out of its plastic holder on two occasions when using it. The first time I simply jammed it back in. The second, I added a drop of superglue to the hole in the handle before reinserting the rod. Two occasions out of hundreds of strikes, I can forgive it that.
Some steels can be quite large and thick. These are often popular with bushcrafters who may also fashion quite lovely leather holders for them. That is not what I am interested in. All I want and need is a simple, small fire steel, and because it is small, the rod is more easily used if it has a small handle to grip. The size of a rod can also dictate how it is used. A large rod can be used to hold down tinder while a striker or back of a knife is pushed down the steel, showering the tinder with sparks. Attempt to use a small fire steel in that way with a stove and you will send it flying. It is very simple to use but may take a little practice before it becomes second nature.
Gas on (if using a gas stove), put the ferro rod close to the burner head, place the angled striker close to the fingers, against the rod, and smartly pull the rod back, keeping the striker in the same position. Stove lights, put pot on.
Not all strikers are created equal either. While a very light ceramic striker can be used, those are both expensive and fragile. I also carry a very small knife on trail with me but prefer not to use that. Instead, I use a dedicated metal striker. Some people favour a steel washer but I like something that is easier to hold firmly while striking. Many strikers come with serrated teeth, in fact some can be an actual section taken from a saw blade. These serrations will tear up a rod needlessly, unless actually being used to carefully shave off slivers to put into the tinder, the better to light when actually showered with sparks. Again, I don’t need to do that. The striker that used to come with Light My Fire ferro rods was so good that I use one of them with whatever rod I am using. The more recent design of Light My Fire striker has now changed to something more ergonomic, the handle of which now incorporates a whistle. I don’t need another whistle as I carry a decent one already, and the whistle on the striker isn’t good enough to become a primary emergency whistle.
Tortoise Gear make the Firefly ferro rods, that replace either tweezers or toothpick in a Victorinox knife scale but neither size are robust enough to use as a primary fire starter. If you do use one of these little ferro rods, be sure to place a finger part way along its length when striking or you will break it in half. Also, use the side of the rod or it will quickly get thin enough that it will no longer friction fit the slot in a Victorinox and fall out. I often include a small emergency fire lighting kit in my ditty bag in shoulder and winter months and this includes one of the little Firefly ferro rods. This is no great weight penalty, the larger 52mm Firefly weighs 1.7g , and the smaller 44mm Firefly Mini weighs just 1.2g.
Victorinox also make their own little ferro rod- the Mini Tool FireAnt, that screws on to the corkscrew found on some of their knives. That also should be regarded purely as a back-up and is not only an expensive option, but a great deal more fiddly to use than anything larger.
Lifesystems also make a decent little ferro rod that weighs 24.5g, including striker and cord. However despite the handle being almost as small as that on the Light My Fire Mini (shorter, narrow but thicker) the 6mm diameter ferro rod is the size of the larger rod found on the Light My Fire Scout. Lifesystems say it will deliver up to 3500 strikes. Which is fine if that is what you want. What I cannot fathom on this tool is the striker. While it is almost a clone of the Light My Fire striker in size and shape, it lacks a decent right-angled edge to easily and successfully strike the rod. Perhaps it was just my example that lacked a little QC, but at least I am able to swap it out for the striker from the original Light My Fire product should I need to use it.
All ferro rods usually come with a protective coating, that has to be scrapped off first in order to correctly use. The coating on the Lifesystems rod is the thickest imaginable and takes considerable effort to remove enough to spark.
For much of my backpacking I have the ‘big stuff’ pretty much dialled in. I know what I like in a shelter. I have my preferences for sleep systems. I have my personal quirks when it comes to clothing, and so on. But occasionally I like to focus on the little things. Things that make life on trail just that little bit more efficient and a little more dependable. Lighting a stove is just such an example. Not so much for when a piezo is working on a fine summers day and a single click results in a roaring flame, but more when it is cold, dark, wet and blowing a hoolie. That is when I want something reliable that I am familiar with. A little ferro rod is just such an item.
Three Points of the Compass 
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