Tinder and Kindling

When to use this

Before you leave home — prepare your tinder kit there. Natural tinder requires scouting before it gets dark.

• Starting a fire with a lighter or match, reliably, first try
• Building a tinder kit before the trip
• Teaching kids that fire is built in stages, not all at once

What you need

• Tinder (catches a spark and holds a tiny ember): dry leaves, bark shreds, cattail fluff, dried grass, cotton balls with petroleum jelly
• Kindling (finger- to pencil-thick sticks that bridge tinder to fuel): dry twigs, fatwood shavings, wood shavings
• Small fuel (thumb-thick sticks): split dry wood or purchased firewood split to kindling size
• A lighter or waterproof matches

Step by step

1. 1.Collect tinder first. It must be bone dry — crumble it in your fingers and listen for a crinkle. Any spring or flexibility means moisture.
2. 2.Natural tinder: the underside of dead bark (dry even in rain), cattail heads pulled apart, dry grass bent into a bird's-nest ball, or the dead interior of a standing dead tree.
3. 3.Prepared tinder: cotton balls rolled in petroleum jelly burn for 3–4 minutes, catch a spark easily, and pack in a film canister. Make a dozen before any trip.
4. 4.Arrange the tinder bundle in a loose, airy ball — not a compressed mass. Air is fuel; the bundle should have gaps you can see light through.
5. 5.Build your kindling stack over the tinder before lighting: a small teepee of pencil-thin sticks over the bundle, a slightly larger ring of finger-thick sticks around that.
6. 6.Light the tinder from the windward side at the base. As flames establish in the tinder, gently blow at the base to feed the kindling — short, steady breaths, not a single hard puff.

Pro tips

• Fatwood — the resin-soaked heartwood of a dead pine — lights in damp conditions when nothing else will. Find it where a pine trunk meets the roots, or buy fatwood sticks.
• The fire is built from small to large: tinder lights kindling, kindling lights small fuel, small fuel lights logs. Skipping a stage is the most common beginner mistake.

Common mistakes

• Skipping straight to thick logs. Logs do not catch from a lighter. Build up through every size.
• Packing the tinder too tightly. A compressed tinder ball smolders and dies for lack of air.

Analog companion

Prefer the full landing page first? See the fire-starting checklist.

Continue learning

• Fire Basics

  Starting a Fire

  Tinder, kindling, fuel — the order that always works.

• Fire Basics

  Fire Structures: Teepee & Log Cabin

  Two reliable shapes — one for fast heat, one for long burn.

• Fire Basics

  Fire in Wet Conditions

  Rain doesn't stop a fire — bad preparation does.