page_title: Glossary of firelighting
section_title: F
hierarchical_section_title: Glossary of firelighting / F
caption_attribution_description: English: French Gasoline Lighter in use during the WWI. Italiano: Riproduzione di un accendino a petrolio in uso durante la prima guerra mondiale dall'esercito francese. Picture taken on Dec 25, 2005 by Rosco (For questions see my userpage in it.wiki)
context_page_description: This is an alphabetized glossary of terms pertaining to lighting fires, along with their definitions. Firelighting is the process of starting a fire artificially. Fire was an essential tool in early human cultural development. The ignition of any fire, whether natural or artificial, requires completing the fire triangle, usually by initiating the combustion of a suitably flammable material.
context_section_description: feather stick
  A length of wood which has been shaved to produce a head of thin curls. It is sometimes used when starting an outdoor fire or campfire when dry tinder is difficult to find. It is often used in conjunction with char cloth.
  ferrocerium
  A man-made metallic material that gives off a large number of hot sparks at temperatures of 3,000 °F (1,650 °C) when scraped against a rough surface (pyrophoricity), such as ridged steel.
  fire
  fire piston
  A device used to kindle fire. It uses the principle of the heating of a gas (in this case air) by its rapid (adiabatic) compression to ignite a piece of tinder, which is then used to set light to kindling.
  fire ring
  A construction or device used to contain an otherwise unenclosed fire, such as a campfire, and prevent it from igniting objects beyond the ring and turning into a wildfire.
  fire striker
  A piece of high-carbon steel used for striking a spark, usually kept in a tinderbox together with flint and tinder.
  Fire Triangle
  A simple model that illustrates the three necessary ingredients needed to ignite most fires: heat, fuel, and an oxidizing agent (usually oxygen). A fire naturally occurs when all of these elements are present and combined in the right mixture, meaning that fire is actually an event rather than a thing. Most fires that can be started with these elements can also be prevented or extinguished by removing any one of the elements of the Fire Triangle.
  firelighter
  A small solid fuel tablet sold as a consumer product and designed to replace kindling for the purpose of quickly and easily starting a fire.
  firelighting
  The process of igniting a fire by artificial means.
  fireplace
  firesteel
  See fire striker.
  firewood
  Any wooden material that is gathered and used as fuel for a fire.
  fireworks
  flammability
  flint
  A hard, sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as a variety of chert. It occurs chiefly as nodules and masses in sedimentary rocks, such as chalks and limestones. Inside the nodule, flint is usually dark grey, black, green, white, or brown in color, and often has a glassy or waxy appearance. A thin layer on the outside of the nodules is usually different in colour, typically white and rough in texture.
  flint spark lighter
  A type of lighter used in many applications to safely light a gaseous fuel to start a flame. It is most commonly used to ignite bunsen burners and oxyacetylene welding torches.
  Fomes fomentarius
  A species of fungal plant pathogen found in Europe, Asia, Africa and North America that is commonly used as tinder in firestarting.
  fuel
  Any material that stores energy which can later be extracted to perform mechanical work in a controlled manner. Most fuels used by humans undergo combustion, a redox reaction in which a combustible substance releases energy after it ignites and reacts with the oxygen in the air. Other processes used to convert fuel into energy include various other exothermic chemical reactions and nuclear reactions, such as nuclear fission or nuclear fusion.
  fuse
  The part of the device that initiates function
caption: A French gasoline lighter in use during World War I
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