• Fire can save your life.fire image by Fotocie from Fotolia.com
  
  In a winter survival situation, a fire might be the only thing that stands between you and death. If you go into the wilderness in winter, carry at least three methods of starting a fire so that if two of them fail, you will still be able to start a fire. Matches are certainly the easiest way to start a fire, but there are many other ways, including flint and steel, prisms or magnifying glass, friction between two sticks, batteries and a lighter.
  
  

Dry Matches

• Always carry matches with you, and be diligent about keeping them dry. The best way to ensure that they stay dry is to melt some candle wax in a small container and dip the matches into the molten wax. The wax will harden around the heads of the matches and stay there until you strike them. When doing this, dip the matches individually or in small groups. If you dip them all in one big bunch, then the seal of the wax will be compromised as soon as you remove the first match. When hiking in the wilderness, keep matches in several places: in your pack, your pocket, maybe even a few in your boot. This way you will still have matches if you lose some of your equipment to a river, a bear or a cliff.
  
  

Magnifying Glass

• A magnifying glass can be used to start a fire fairly easily as long as the sun is shining brightly enough. Lay a bit of newspaper, birch bark, dead leaves or other dry and thin material on a flat surface. Focus the rays of the sun onto the surface of this material until a tiny bright spot shows. Make the spot as small and focused as possible by moving the magnifying glass up and down. Hold it steady in one spot and the material will begin to smolder. Blow on it gently until it bursts into flame. When it is burning, transfer it to a small pile of tinder, then build up the fire from there.
  
  

Batteries and Steel Wool

• It is possible to start a fire with batteries and steel wool. If you have several batteries in a flashlight, a GPS, or a radio, take them out. Get a small green branch, about 1 inch in diameter, and make a slice down the end of it, along the grain, with a knife. This branch will serve as a clamp for the batteries. Put the negative end of one battery and the positive end of the other battery in the notch and press them together. Pull out a little bundle of steel wool (the finer the better), and stretch it out to a length a little longer than the batteries. When you touch the steel wool to the two exposed ends of the batteries, current will be shot through it and it will burn. As soon as it is burning, remove it from the batteries to prevent them from draining or exploding. Use the burning steel wool to ignite tinder.