Outdoor Reliance

This will allow plenty of time to add kindling to get your fire stable.

In the pictures, there are two examples of the Eastern Red Cedar. One is a large tree while the other is a smaller tree almost looking like a high bush.

Things to look for to identify it:

1. It has simple scale and awl-like leaves.

2. It has fibrous, peeling bark.

3. It's cones do not look like pine cones but instead look like blue fleshy berries.

4. It's an evergreen.

Bushcraft Uses:

1. The shaved bark makes an excellent tinder.

2. Can be used to construct a bow drill set.

If you can spot this tree, you'll know you can get fire.  

Take a clear glass jug and fill it with water. For some reason, this shape worked very well. Without the water, getting the rays you need to get a fire started doesn't work. This works best only when there is water in the jug.

Find some tinder. I used cedar bark here. There are many ways to identify and collect Cedar tinder.

The rays passing through the water become focused and very hot. This tinder was smoking the instant I put it under the focused light.

Now you have fire. This went from smoke to fire quicker than lighting a match.

The point of using this method is to illustrate the importance of thinking outside the box. If you get creative you can get fire almost anywhere. Not to mention, this was a fun discovery!