Here are the

three most popular methods on how to start a fire with sticks.

1. Hand Drill
2. Bow Drill
3. Fire Plow

Each method has its pros and cons, but to be successful, you must diligently follow specific
instructions. Its hard enough to be successful as is (more on this later), but without employing
proper techniques, it can be all but impossible.
In this guide, we will describe each of these three methods in detail and provide simple-to-follow
videos to show you exactly how to start a fire with sticks. But first we should talk about WHY this
survival skill should be learned.

Why You Should Learn How To Start A Fire With Sticks

Whats the first survival skill you think of when you hear the phrase Wilderness Survival?
I hope critical survival skills such as water procurement and debris shelter building come to mind.
And I bet you also thought about fire starting as well.
Why? Because fire is so freaking useful in wilderness emergencies. Warmth, signaling, cooking,
protection from animalsand also hope.
Fire and survival go together like bullets and guns. Theres just a special place in the human heart
for fire and survival.
For instance, when all hope seems lost in the wild, a fire will spark some much-needed inspiration
to keep you going.
It just feels like, if you can make a fireyou can make it.
Or as said by the blind priest in the classic movie Frankenstein, Fire Is Good. Fire Is Our Friend.

Sure, fire is good; fire is our friend; but a fire is easy, right? Just whip out your $1.50 gas station
Bic, hold the flame to wood and presto you got yourself a blazing, warm campfire.
But let me ask you this; Do you always have a lighter with you? Have you ever forgotten to pack
one? Did it get confiscated by TSA airport security?
The truth is, matches get wet, lighters run out of fluid, and both are notorious for going missing
when you most need them.
But sticks; yes sticks, can be found nearly anywhere.
Learning how to start a fire with sticks is not a survival skill you want to be forced to use. But its a
skill that every prepared survivalist should master.
Being able to start a fire, build a shelter, and craft weapons from natural raw materials is powerful.
The ability to survive with only the resources you can scavenge from the wilderness is called
Bushcraft.
And Bushcraft skills are what wilderness survival is all about.
These skills are not just useful for survivalists; even if youre a camper, hiker, backpacker, hunter or
angler starting a fire with sticks is an essential survival skill you should practice.
Its one of the few basic self-reliance skills that might someday save your life. So its time to learn

this skill; Just In Case.

How To
Start A Fire With Sticks: Friction
Starting a fire with sticks, in its simplest form, boils down to harnessing the physics of friction.
Each of the three methods shares this friction concept.
So lets go through the general idea of how friction creates fire and then well dive into the details
of the specific methods.

Preparation Is Crucial
If you get the preparation right, youll drastically increase your odds of success. Preparation
includes:
1 Procure the proper materials.

Sourcing a dry straight stick

Finding dry flat wood to make a fire board (or fire hearth)
Creating a dry and very fine tinder bundle
Creating a bunch of kindling
Having a bunch of dry sticks

The main thing in common in this list are that you must use dry wood. If you select wood with
moisture, you are putting yourself at a significant disadvantage. Dont underestimate how important
this step is. You get this wrong; youre destined to fail.
So the key to getting this right is to select sturdy wood with very low moisture content.
Why? Because moisture is fire startings kryptonite. The more moisture in the wood, the more
friction will be necessary to build an ember, and the less chance of success youll have.
Seasoned woods are ideal, but any thoroughly dried-out wood will do.

2 Stage the materials.

You need to have your tinder bundle and kindling staged in such a way that the materials are nearby
and ready to be employed.
Much of this is basic fire starting 101.
The process of going from ember to fire is called working a fire up the ladder. This is how it
works:
1. You begin with a heat source or flame. For this ember or flame to grow you need very dry
and very fine tinder.
2. Then this tinder bundle provides enough fire and energy to catch larger more robust
materials such as kindling.
3. Then finally, the fire is strong enough to catch small dry sticks and logs.
This is how you go from a small ignition source to a roaring fire.
If you skip these preparation steps, then youre going to find it tough to get a fire started (unless you
have a fire accelerant such as gasoline).
Now before you start, collect a variety of dried kindling: old plants, bits of cured wood, dandelion
fluff, old stalks, dead grass. This will act as your tinder bundle. In general, the finer the tinder, the
more flammable.
Dont underestimate this step. If your tinder bundle is not dry and fine enough, youll struggle to
transfer fire from your hot ember to the tinder bundle.
Also, gather larger twigs and sticks to feed the kindling.
Kindling is wood (sticks) slightly larger and most substantial than tinder.
Flammable materials such as dry cedar bark, pine shavings, and needles, are all great kindling
options. All those resinous dried soft woods that burn fast.
Youll add these slower burning hardwoods to your fire after youve got it going using your tinder
bundle.
Thats it. Heres a quick recap:
You find all the proper materials (dry stick, dry board, dry/fine tinder material,
dry/fine kindling materials, and small/dry sticks)
Prepare materials for ideal setup (fire drill setup and fire starting materials setup)
Create massive amounts of friction using one of the three techniques discussed below
The friction buildup will turn the friction point from wood into hot ember
Quickly transfer the hot ember into your tinder bundle and blow (this ignites your
tinder bundle)
Grab the kindling and use the burning tinder bundle to ignite it
Keep adding larger, dry sticks to create a long lasting fire

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Making Fire with Sticks: Hand Drill

The simplest way to create enough incendiary friction is with a setup called a fire drill.
A fire drill looks exactly like it sounds. Its a drill made with sticks and wood. The overall setup
mirrors the design of a drill press you would see in a metal fabrication shop.

Its a combination of a long, straight, dry, sturdy stick with one end sharpened to a point and a flat
piece of wood. The sticks sharpened tip is set down at a perpendicular angle onto a flat piece of
wood called a fireboard.
But before drilling, being successful with this method begins with the proper material selection:
fireboard and sticks. As we touched on early in this article, the wood materials must be dry. The
drier, the better.

Once a fireboard and stick have been procured, its time focus on creating an enormous amount of
friction.
Now with this fire drill setup, you place your open hands on either side of the stick. Palms flat, stick
between palms and you rub your hands together making the stick twirl.
The twirling action of the stick then transfers rotational energy via friction at the point of contact
between stick and fireboard.
Pro Tip: Placing your foot on the fireboard will hold it steady while you are twirling.
With a hand drill method, the friction is created by twirling the pointed stick with your hands while
at the same time adding downward pressure through stick into the fireboard.
The combination of spinning and pressure, over a period of time, creates the friction buildup
needed to create a hot ember.
Pro Tip: Make sure you have a small notch in the fireboard for the tip of the fire drill stick to rest in.
That shallow notch is where the friction will be focused and an ember created. The notch also helps
to ensure your drill stick doesnt wobble all over the fireboard.
Youll also need to add a side notch on the board. The reason for the side notch is that when you are
creating the friction the hot wood fibers need some oxygen and also need a place to build up.
Without a notch, the hot wood fibers have nowhere to build up, and it will take much longer to
create a hot ember.
Once set up, the process is simple (but not suggesting its easy).
Just give this setup enough friction (energy) to turn the contact point of the stick and board into a
hot coal or ember.
And a hot ember is the Holy Grail of creating a fire with sticks.
This sounds simple, right? Well, it is, in theory, but heres the catch.
While rubbing your hands together to twirl the stick, you also have to push down to create pressure.
Because without downward pressure, you wont be able to create enough friction to turn the point
of contact into a small hot ember.
Significant amounts of friction are created only by the combination of 1) fast rotation and 2)
downward pressure.
And significant amounts of friction are necessary.
It takes a tremendous quantity of twirling and pressure over time to create an ember hot enough to
light tinder.
So youll need to twirl a lot.
And then twirl, twirl, twirl and twirl some more until the end of the fire drill rubbing against the fire
board produces a whisper of smoke.
When you see that whisper of smoke, youre not done but youre making progress. Youll need
to dig deep and twirl with even more vigor.

If you pause to rest, even for a second or two, the friction youve worked so hard to build up will be
lost. So no breaks. If you want to succeed, you must keep twirling
The goal is to twirl until the tip of the fire drill becomes hot enough to grow into a small, very hot
ember.
Once a legitimate ember is established, you can stop twirling and transfer the coal from fire board to
tinder. You dont need to rush here, a good ember will be useful for a couple of minutes, but also
dont waste time.
Place the ember into the tinder bundle and blow on the ember to give it some oxygen. Oxygen will
stoke the ember and help it to transfer the embers energy into the tinder material.
If successful, the tinder bundle will begin smoking and will eventually burst aflame. Then just work
your way up the fire ladder from ember to fire.
Congratulations! You have now successfully started a fire with sticks using the hand drilling
methodology.
Now if a picture is worth a thousand words, then a good video is worth at least 100 times that. So
here is an excellent video by David Canterbury that goes through the details on how to start a fire
using the hand drill method.

As simple as this method seems on paper, its not nearly as easy as it sounds.
To be honest, this is one of the most challenging ways to start a fire with sticks and requires a ton of
determination.
Why? Because not only will the contact point become affected by the forces of friction, so will your
hands.
Your hands will quickly become hot and sore. If your hands are unaccustomed to this sort of abuse,
they will soon become blistered and bloody as well.
And thats the rub (pun intended).
Often the pain in your hands becomes too great to continue before you can establish a glowing
ember.
It may become so painful that you will swear, curse, and give up in a heap of sweaty,
frustrated agony.
So can a fire be started with a fire drill setup using only your hands? Yes, it is possible, but unless
your calloused hands are accustomed to this sort of abuse, its not probable.
However, all is not lost.
The way I see it, you have two options to help improve your odds of success.
If you have another person with you, you can trade off twirling. For this to work you have to
transfer twirling duties quickly. Because every time you stop (even for a second or two) you
lose hard earned friction buildup. However, if you can transfer quickly, you will allow your

hands and muscles a break. Which over time may allow for a faster, more successful friction
buildup.
Make a simple tool and setup modification to take your soft, weak, fleshy hands out of the
equation altogether.

Making Fire
with Sticks: Fire Bow
Another way on how to start a fire with sticks is with the use of a fire bow. You may recognize these
from movies of a certain time period where the heroes fashion a bow designed device from a branch
and some twine.
They give the fire bow a few smooth pulls, and moments later fire jumps to life. Again, its not as
easy as it looks.
The directors of those sorts of movies edit out the hours of toil and sweat and instead hop right to
the best part when the fire starts.
A fire bow is composed of a sturdy branch but, in this case, you want it to have some moisture. This
helps prevent it from snapping while you are drilling for friction. The sort of branch you are looking
for has a slight C shape to it, like a bow.
Yes, you can buy a fire bow and practice with it at home, but we are talking about ruggedly living
off the land for a time. Blue light specials wont save you.
Try making a fire bow at home from natural material so you know what to do in the event of
wilderness survival.
So once you have your bow-shaped stick there are a few more steps to create a fire bow. Next you
need some string. Most string materials can work, twine, shoestring, etc. However, I keep paracord
with me at all times and thats perfect material for this.
Worst case, if you dont have shoe strings or paracord, you can tear a long strip of sturdy material

from your clothing. Not ideal but you can make it work.
Another wilderness option is to find some tough, flexible vines, like grape vines.
The length of cordage you need is roughly one and half times the length of your fire bow.
Now fasten the cordage to each end of the fire bow, at the tip ends.
Pro Tip: A fire bow fire drill works better if you select a stick that is larger in circumference than the
one youd twirl in your hands. This helps give the bow cordage more area to grab which helps
smooth the twirling process.
Now since youre not twirling with both hands and are instead using only one hand on the fire drill,
you can use the other hand to apply a stabilizing bearing block.
This is a piece of wood (or shell) held comfortably in your hand and placed on top of the fire drill to
keep it steady as you twirl. If using wood as the stabilizing bearing block youll want to add a
natural lubricant to it. A lubricant helps to prevent the bearing block from building friction and
working against your twirling efforts. Some fresh leaves work for this or a crushed worm or slug
can work as well.
As before, make sure you have a tinder nest with easily ignitable materials on hand, ready to catch
the coal you create.
Now you are prepared to drill for fire. The fire drill cordage is looped once around the stick so you
can twirl it by moving the bow in a back and forth motion like you are sawing.
The fire bow string twirls the fire drill, so its point rubs against the fireboard, creating the fireproducing friction.
You hold the fire drill steady in place with your free hand placed on top of the hand-hold, keeping
the fire drill from dancing all over the fireboard.
The fire bow has the following benefits over hand twirling alone:
Its way easier on your hands.
You can create more downward pressure and maintain a similar twirling rate. This is due to the
free hand pushing down on the stick through the stabilizing block.
When one hand gets tired, you can switch hands, which should help keep up a fast twirling rate
and pressure without tiring as quickly.
Everything else remains the same. Friction>hot ember>tinder bundle>kindling>small sticks
>logs>FIRE.

Making Fire
With Sticks: Fire Plow
The third way on how to start a fire with sticks is by employing a fire plow setup. A fire plow uses
the same physics of friction but in a slightly different way.
With a plow, instead of friction being created through rotational motion, friction develops with a
sliding back-and-forth motion.
So to accommodate this, a trough is created on the fireboard.
This trough is where the one end of the tip is placed. Then the tip of the stick is pushed into the fire
board at an angle. So pressure slides the stick along the trough. Doing this quickly, repeatedly, and
forcefully, creates the friction build up necessary to create a hot ember.
Everything else from preparation to working up the fire ladder is essentially the same.

Conclusion
Now is the time to take the knowledge of how to start a fire with sticks and put it to some use. The
best way to learn is to practice. I just supplied the first half of the equation, now its time for you to
supply the second half.
And once youre successful, Id love to hear about it in the comments below.
Happy Drilling & Plowing.