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Briar Patch Outdoors

Ice Fire Field Test - Conclusion

by David McIntyre

In my estimation I was partially successful.  I did create a working ice lens under field conditions with only a Swiss Army Knife.  I failed to collect the correct tinder to get the job done.   On a later walk through the forest I located several tinder resources I had missed on my first pass.  Birch trees aren’t common this far south in PA, but I collected false tinder fungus from a dead tree.  I also found a shattered Cedar tree that yielded a large ball of shredded bark.  I was easily able to create flame with the bark and fungus using a small credit card sized lens from my kit.  Therein lies the rub.

That same shattered Cedar tree yielded up a beautiful fireboard and spindle, harvested with the saw on the Huntsman.  A bow or hand drill was in easy reach the entire time and would have allowed me to work under overcast skies and falling snow.  Given the weather conditions on the day I made the ice lens this would have been my only option.

As a survival fire lighting method I do not feel the ice lens is without merit.  To be practical, making fire from ice depends on a ready supply of clear ice, good sun, and below freezing temps.   You must have the ability to shape the ice into a sphere.  You must also have the correct tinder such as char cloth, or tinder fungus, and you must have the skill to blow up a coal to flame in a tinder ball.   Given those conditions, materials, and skills I was able to create fire on my first try with char cloth.  My failure according to the original parameters of the test was a failure of observation not execution.  I walked right past the false tinder fungus that would have made it possible as planned.

While making fire from ice is dependent on the right conditions, sunny, clear, cold conditions are quite common in the northern latitudes.    Natural clear ice is easy to find anywhere icicles form along streams or cliffs.   True tinder fungus is a common resource in Birch forests.  Creating an ice lens is not physically demanding and once made can be used with very little skill.  As long as the temperature stays below freezing the lens will last a long time and it is easily transported.  The irony of making fire from ice and the bragging rights alone make this a technique well worth practicing.

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