Start A Fire With a Water Bottle

(Modern Survival.org) – To start a fire using a water bottle, which of the following isn’t needed?

Sunlight
Water
Darkened Paper
Plain White Paper

Answer: Light Paper. Here’s why…

One of the basic fundamentals of survival is the mastery of fire. With it, you can cook food, boil water and keep yourself warm. Unfortunately, starting a fire without the proper tools is a dying art. Few people can just rub sticks together in the wild to produce a flame. There are, however, other ways you can start a fire in extreme situations.

The easiest way to start a fire without a lighter or matches is, arguably, by using a water bottle and paper. In the following video, YouTuber ‘The King Of Random’ shows us how the process works:

By magnifying the sun through the curved part of the bottle, dark areas of paper can be burned. This works best with paper that has black ink on it. The dark spots will absorb the heat, causing the paper to smoke and eventually smolder.

Once you have a smoldering hole in the first layer of paper, roughly the size of a quarter, cover it with another layer of paper. Repeat this process a few times, then blow on the embers to create a full-fledged fire.

If you intend to use this method to create a fire, here are a few things to remember:

To get the first paper to smolder, it will need to have black ink on it to absorb the magnified heat. Plain white paper will not work. If you don’t have any paper with black ink, you can rub dirt on what you have to darken it in a pinch.
Clear bottles work the best, using clear water. Colored bottles can work, but it may take longer to get the desired result.
Use the curved portion of the bottle, near the top, to magnify the sun. Adjust the angle until you get the smallest, most concentrated point of light you can.
In a survival situation, you will want to have your main fire constructed so that you can use the burning paper to ignite it.

Fire is an important tool, and learning multiple ways of creating it is a skill all survivalists should master. To learn another unusual way of starting a fire, click here.

~Here’s to Your Survival!