DIY Altoids Tin Fire Kit

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To start off, there are many variations online of inventive, resourceful people repurposing the tin those powerful Altoids mints come in. I’m a big fan of Altoids and have held onto the tins for some future use.

As a matter of fact click here to see how this website depicts 22 ways to repurpose your Altoids tin, many survivalism/Preparedness ideas within.

Before I sketch a simple fire kit for your Bug Out Bag using a repurposed Altoids or similar mint tin, I should state that if you find yourself stuck in a woodland situation, no matter what the scenario or circumstances may be, having knowledge of primitive wilderness survival is an invaluable resource to rely on. If you find you are without the fire kit I discuss below, your BOB, or any man made materials to start a fire, then you should have the mental reinforcement in knowing you can survive with just a knife in the woods. But, even if you don’t have a knife, the tasks may be a bit more challenging, but you should have the knowledge and skill to survive. If you have not begun a study and research into primitive wilderness survival methodologies, then a great place to start, and where my wife and I began, is the work of Tom Brown Jr.

With that said, in our disposable, supermarket driven consumer culture, there are really not a whole lot choices when it comes to repurposing the packaging of items you may find in a supermarket, at least not for a survival situation when having to Bug Out. Surely, those more inventive than I may argue differently. Regarding vessels you can use to store smaller items inside, is itself a compact, the Altoids tin seems the way to go.

For a Fire Starter Kit we can stow all the essentials of getting a fire going into one large Altoids tin. Those teeny tiny Altoids tins can be repurposed, but they’re not large enough for a Fire Starter kit. Think more along the lines of small sewing kits, or even a small pill case. When preparing your kit, try to adopt the motto I’ve gleaned from the prepper community: “have a back up for your back up.” Have a redundancy plan and don’t just store one type of thing in your Fire Starter kit so you have more than one possible way of starting a fire, keeping in mind that some methods work better than others depending on the situation—climate, materials available, and so on.

Altoids FireKit in US Army Belt Pouch

Items for building your Fire Starter Kit:

To keep moisture from entering the tin I would use a band of duct tape, I prefer the Gorilla Glue variety, around the edge of the lid, only to be removed upon use of the kit, or you can place the whole tin in a water tight, zip lock style bag. If you decide to make multiple kits for varied purposes out of Altoids tins, like a First Aid Kit, a Suture Kit, Sewing Kit, etc—then be sure to label all your kits. A simple color-coded strip of duct tape or electrical tape would be an easy identifier. A strip of red tape can signify this as your Fire Starter kit.

As an extra, I like that this tin can fit into a small US Army belt pouch, that I can wear on my utility belt, or can easily slip into a jacket or vest pocket, or can be clipped at the ready outside my BOB. Either way, a repurposed Altoids or mint tin as a Fire Starter kit takes up very little space in your BOB.

2013-02-16 08:00:20

Source: http://www.green-and-growing.com/2012/03/diy-altoids-tin-fire-kit.html