page_title: Fire making
section_title: Friction
hierarchical_section_title: Fire making / Methods / Friction
caption_attribution_description: Ancient fire making methods
context_page_description: Fire making, fire lighting or fire craft is the process of starting a fire artificially. It requires completing the fire triangle, usually by heating tinder above its autoignition temperature.
  Fire is an essential tool for survival and was important in early human cultural development. Today, it is a key component of Scouting and bushcraft.
context_section_description: Fire can be created through friction by rapidly grinding pieces of solid combustible material (such as wood) against each other (or a hard surface) which are heated and create an ember.  Successfully creating fire by friction involves skill, fitness, knowledge, and acceptable environmental conditions.  Some techniques involve crafting a system of interlocking pieces that give the practitioner an improved mechanical advantage; these techniques require more skill and knowledge but less fitness, and work in less ideal conditions.  Once hot enough, the ember is introduced to the tinder, more oxygen is added by blowing and the result is ignition.
  The hand drill is the most widespread among indigenous cultures, characterized by the use of a thin, straightened wooden shaft or reed to be spun with the hands, grinding within a notch against the soft wooden base of a fire board (a wooden board with a carved notch in which to catch heated wood fibers created by friction). This repeated spinning and downward pressure causes black dust to form in the notch of the fireboard, eventually creating a hot, glowing coal. The coal is then carefully placed among dense, fine tinder, which is pressed against it as one blows directly onto the coal until the tinder begins burning and eventually catches into flame.  The advantage of the hand drill technique is that it requires no rope.
  The bow drill uses the same principle as the hand drill (friction by rotation of wood on wood) but the spindle is shorter, wider (about the size of a human thumb) and driven by a bow, which allows longer, easier strokes and protects the palms.   Additional downward pressure is generated by the handhold.
  A pump drill is a variant of the bow drill that uses a coiled rope around a cross-section of wooden stake spin the shaft by pumping up and down a cross-member.
  The fire plough or fireplow consists of a stick cut to a dull point, and a long piece of wood with a groove cut down its length. The stake is pressed down hard and rubbed quickly against the groove of the second piece in a "plowing" motion, to produce hot dust which creates an ember. A split is often made down the length of the grooved piece, so that oxygen can flow freely to the coal/ember.
  A fire-saw is a method by which a piece of wood is sawed through a notch in a second piece or pieces to generate friction. The tinder may be placed between two slats of wood with the third piece or "saw" drawn over them above the tinder so as to catch a coal, but there is more than one configuration.
  A fire-thong uses a non-melting cord, ratan, or flexible strip of wood to 'saw' the wood creating friction.  On the board, opposite side the cord, is a well with a hole through the board to gathered the charred, soon-to-smoke, wood dust.
  The Rudiger roll friction fire method, also known as the "fire roll" method, is believed to have been invented by World War 2 POWs. A German survival expert named Rüdiger Nehberg wrote about this method in one of his books. A small amount of wood ash is rolled up inside of cotton like a cigar. The cotton is then placed between two boards and rolled back and forth. Pressure and speed are both gradually increased. With proper technique ignition can occur in seconds.
caption: A fire plough (left), as opposed to a hand drill (right)
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