Fire Making Using cooking oil to start a fire

D

damib

Joined
Jul 7, 2021
Messages
119
Hello,
so I have tried pouring a little bit of oil on some dry paper towel to make fire. I ignited the oiled paper towel with firesteel and it unleashed inferno literally setting fire to relatively thick pieces of wood. The efficiency amazed me. I used 1:1 mixture of rapeseed oil and peanut oil just because I collected it after some deep frying that I did around christmas. I must admit that I am quite inexperienced regarding making fire without lighter and industrially made firestarter, so I would like to turn to the wisdom of those that are way more experienced than me. Do you use this method? Why? Why not? Is there some dangerous element to it? Do you prefer some type of cooking oil for making fire? Does this work with semi solid and solid fats like lard, beef tallow, coconut oil or candle wax?
Thank you.
 
damib said:
Hello,
so I have tried pouring a little bit of oil on some dry paper towel to make fire. I ignited the oiled paper towel with firesteel and it unleashed inferno literally setting fire to relatively thick pieces of wood. The efficiency amazed me. I used 1:1 mixture of rapeseed oil and peanut oil just because I collected it after some deep frying that I did around christmas. I must admit that I am quite inexperienced regarding making fire without lighter and industrially made firestarter, so I would like to turn to the wisdom of those that are way more experienced than me. Do you use this method? Why? Why not? Is there some dangerous element to it? Do you prefer some type of cooking oil for making fire? Does this work with semi solid and solid fats like lard, beef tallow, coconut oil or candle wax?
Thank you.
Click to expand...
In extreme cold conditions some cooking oils have a higher ignition temp and are slow to ignite and need to be warmed up to ignite well. So it depends on the temperature at the time you want to start a fire. In warmer climates it might work well enough but not as well in the far north.
 
Lesknife said:
In extreme cold conditions some cooking oils have a higher ignition temp and are slow to ignite and need to be warmed up to ignite well. So it depends on the temperature at the time you want to start a fire. In warmer climates it might work well enough but not as well in the far north.
Click to expand...
Interesting info, can you be a more specific about what temperature extremes we are talking about?
 
Blue Sky said:
Interesting info, can you be a more specific about what temperature extremes we are talking about?
Click to expand...

That can vary depending upon the type of cooking oil. Most cooking oils are designed to have a higher flash point to be more stable and safer for cooking around a fire or source of heat. Any oil with a low flash point such as kerosene would be dangerous around a cooking stove.

The thing to consider is that you would probably need the cooking oil warmed up and in warmer temperatures to ignite well. Or have some other fire starter to get it going. If the conditions were damp and wood or materials being used for a fire are slow to burn without freezing temperatures then cooking oil might burn sufficiently to get the damp materials burning well. I would suggest just using a type of oil that is made for fire starting. I sure wouldn’t recommend cooking oil for freezing temperatures with ice and snow.
 
So basically my-backyard-type cold. Makes perfect sense, after posting my question I realized anything with olive oil, etc. in my fridge solidifies to some degree, and that’s only like 40 deg F or so. Sparks can be quite hot though, so now I have to wonder just how hardened oil would catch one in say, 20 deg F, and how soaking into paper affects that. An experiment might be in my future…
Thanks!
 
Blue Sky said:
So basically my-backyard-type cold. Makes perfect sense, after posting my question I realized anything with olive oil, etc. in my fridge solidifies to some degree, and that’s only like 40 deg F or so. Sparks can be quite hot though, so now I have to wonder just how hardened oil would catch one in say, 20 deg F, and how soaking into paper affects that. An experiment might be in my future…
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Think of it as lighting up a candle which is basically made of compoubds very similar to cooking oil. Firstly, you light the wick. Then the fire melts the wax and the melted wax is consumed as a fuel by the fire. I am sure that it is not always that perfect, but you get the point.

You can generally lower the melting point of anything by introducing very little amounts of some impurities, so you can experiment with safe things such as adding very little water into the oil and tell us about the difference.
 
I did a batch of mixed lindseed and bees wax as a spark catch fire starter, and found that the spark ignition temp needed it to be higher than I thought, a lighter that would light when warmed in the sun wouldn't if left in the shade. I also found that when making paraffin lighters, the dipping temp and "drain time" mattered a lot too. The cotton/cellulose will burn, but it needs to be able to get up to a temp where the wax will burn, without the wax taking out all the heat. Oils work the same way, a hotter oil will drip out more, allowing more "wick" to be exposed.
I'm in the sub tropics, so for me I don't need a fire starter to ignite at -40 anymore (grew up on the edge of the Canadian Shield) but I do need it to burn hot and long enough to deal with wet timber.
You end up chasing a lot of variables. For me, I found that a paraffin/petroleum jelly mix between 5:1 and 3:1 (from memory) worked really well to maintain a very easy spark while being very resilient to my high heat location. Where as with straight paraffin, I needed to get my dip temp hotter than was smart, and my soak time very low, with a good drainage, basically way more work than was smart. I was able to make a 1/2 gallon bucket of fire starters in just a couple hours one day, and they were easy enough to use that most of my students (age 10 or so) could get a light within six strikes of an average ferro rod.
So you will end up chasing the variables that matter. For me, cooking oil is more smoke than I want, and messier than I care for, but if I needed a fire, I'd make it work.
 
damib said:
Think of it as lighting up a candle which is basically made of compoubds very similar to cooking oil. Firstly, you light the wick. Then the fire melts the wax and the melted wax is consumed as a fuel by the fire. I am sure that it is not always that perfect, but you get the point.

You can generally lower the melting point of anything by introducing very little amounts of some impurities, so you can experiment with safe things such as adding very little water into the oil and tell us about the difference.
Click to expand...

To change the melting point they have to be mixed, as in a solution. That won't happen with water. Only other oils or hydrocarbon fuels (gasoline, kerosene, etc) would mix with oil.

A lot depends on the cooking oil. Oils with a lot of saturated fat content have a higher melting point. Olive oil will turn solid in a refigerator. Oils with high polyunsaturated content would work better at lower temperatures. Safflower oil has melting point 2F, -17C, and soybean oil is similar. Corn oil melting point range is -6.8F to -18F.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top