What's the Story with Magnesium?

Magnesium is a component of some fire starters. We use it because it allows a wider range of fire-starting capability – it’ll start more fires in worse conditions than a flint alone. Magnesium is a soft, light weight metal that can be easily scraped and ignited. It burns incredibly hot - five thousand degrees.  You use it to kick start your fire with a burst of intense heat that rapidly devours any tinder and spreads the burn to your kindling.

But there are different qualities of Magnesium. Our Magnesium is 95% pure. The other 5% trace elements help prevent oxidation. Have you ever purchased a fire starter and found the Magnesium extremely difficult to scrape?  Or once scraped that it won’t burn? Sometimes you scrape and scrape and all you can get is dust?  This is because the Magnesium is heavily alloyed (other metals mixed in), and makes it as hard as a stone.  Someone is saving money at your expense.

Magnesium is great to use as that additional tool to help start a fire. But be aware that if there is strong wind you must provide proper shelter for the shavings so they don’t blow away. We recently lit damp and wet pine needles in the wind. We made a hole on the large pile of pine needles and shaved the magnesium into the hole. We then shot sparks into the hole and after smoldering for 30 seconds the needles burst into flame.

Every situation is different and lighting a fire in bad conditions can test your resourcefulness. But our magnesium scrapes easily and ignites easily, which puts you that much ahead of the game.