The standard lecture goes like this: If you are going into any kind of wilderness for any reason you need to be able to make fire. To ensure you can make fire, you should bring a fire kit. A fire kit should have a lighter, a Ferro rod, matches, and tinder. This same basic lecture is repeated by all the reputable outdoor skill guys with minor variations. Some people like Dan are satisfied with this basic trio if they are just out and exploring. But Lonnie (who lives in Alaska) adds a road flare to his kit in case he ever needs a fire instantaneously. Josh takes things even further. He seems to strive to have as many possible ways of starting a fire in a small as possible kit. Regardless of how they differ, they all have the lighter, ferro rod, matches, and tinder at the core of their kit.

What I don’t understand at an intuitive level is why the matches? In the theoretical sense, I understand why. More ways of starting a fire are always better. And a good match has fire starting and tinder all bound up in one. But on the logic that more ways of starting a fire are better, I want to have a MAPP torch along with me as well. The reason I don’t carry a MAPP torch is because it weighs too much to be worth what a MAPP torch has to offer.

Now the opportunity cost to carry matches is not anywhere close to being as extreme as that of carrying matches. Nonetheless, in the space that matches takes up, you could have brought something else along. So to my mind, the question is why would I want to bring matches along instead of another lighter or some extra tinder? What does matches have to offer that bringing more of something else can’t compensate for?

Part of the reason I have these questions is that up until this test, I had never started a fire with matches so I had no practical basis of comparison. So for this test, I elected to try to start a fire in as similar conditions as possible between a match and lighter.

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