In a survival situation, starting a fire is pretty key to making it through; fire provides warmth, lets you cook food, is a light source and in a pinch, is a self-defense tool for warding off intruders – two and four legged.

Pine tar sticks let you quickly and easily start a fire to ignite tinder or kindling; here is how to make them!

Start Your Heat Source

So to start this project you will need a heat source. If you are out camping, or surviving in the wild; you would want a camp fire.

Gather Your Materials

For this, I need 2 resources: Charcoal, and Rabbit Dung. For the Charcoal, I just ground it up with a smooth rock, and turned it into a fine-powder. What the charcoal does it is allows the pitch to harden easily, and catch a char pretty easily. Then, I took some Rabbit Dung and ground it into a fine powder as well. And of course; the pitch. You want to gather dried up pitch. Your measurements will be about 50% pitch, 50% charcoal, and 25% fine fibers.

Start Making It

Now you're ready to start making the tar. Place some Wire mesh on top of the fire. Place it over the fire, along with a small Altoids Tin with 2 ounces of pitch inside. If you don't have one of these, a rock with a bit of a concave would work as well. Once over the fire, I let it sit for about 5 mins.

Let It Boil

So now that everything is over the fire, you're going to want to let your pitch melt. You want it to be almost like syrup, and make sure that every piece of pitch is melted.

Insert Your Ingredients

Now that your pitch is melted, and almost like syrup; you're ready to pour in your materials. I added the charcoal first, and mixed it up. Then, with the tin still over the burning coals, I added the fine fibers. Then, I mixed it up and took the tin out of the fire. Let sit until it starts to get tough like Oatmeal.

Apply It

I took a twig and started scooping as much pitch as I can on the stick. Keep repeating this step until all the pitch is out of the tin. Once done, you're done!

Finished!

Now your pitch is ready to be used!

The great thing about pine tar sticks is that you can carry them wherever you go – they take up almost no room – but can start a fire in almost any environment!

Since they are easy to make, part of an afternoon dedicated to making them will give you more pine tar sticks than you will likely ever need.

To see more about pine tar sticks, please visit Instructables.