TRANSCRIPT

Today in the fire lab, we’ll be conducting a kindling ignition test on our new 2-in-1 firelighters: Binary Stars
Binary Stars twist apart to make two lighters, that when primed, can be lit with a spark, resulting in over 5 minutes of hot flame, but the question today is which lighter will ignite its kindling first? White on the left, or blue on the right? Choose now, and choose wisely.
And all betting is closed… and away we go!
The secret to firelighting is understanding that wood does not burn. HEAT breaks wood down into things that DO burn, and while orange flames can be a useful product of pyrolysis, you need to focus on the radiant heat emerging from the main pyrolysis reaction AND oxidisation of solid carbon that by now is emerging from the wood on several surfaces.
You can literally see progress on the right as a new pyrolysis reaction starts on one of these wood surfaces inside the kindling stack (blue is clearly going to win by the way) but over on the left I’ve created a little overlay to help you better understand what is happening as heat is building in this chamber and lignin and cellulose molecules on all of these surfaces begin to break down into fuel (blue has totally won, by the way), so, as the heat builds, these surfaces eventually start their own full combustion reactions that will go on to feed the other reactions because they are radiating heat back onto them, helping them to release fuel, a process that is necessary and eats a considerable amount of energy in itself because – again – wood does not burn. A fire that does not feed heat back onto itself will most likely wither and die and keeping this in mind when IGNITING a fire is crucial to arriving at a sustainable reaction. VISUALISING SUCCESS in this case is not merely having happy thoughts. It is knowing how fire works to help it do its job better.
By now both fires have evolved to the point where all of the pyrolysis reactions have united into a single dancing flame, all is right with the world, and blue totally wins.
Binary Stars are part of our luxury firelighter range at Fire Burn Good. 2-in-1 Breaking Hearts are also available and equally effective, or you could choose our standard firelighters for camping and survival purposes. Sharing this video helps to support our store. Thank you.