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I've watched several seasons of the Survivor reality TV Show so far and and many contestants have been trying. to start a fire using materials found in the wild, yet I haven't seen anyone that could do so successfully.

It seems one could learn to make fire by friction using wood by practicing a day or two? But then why have none of the contestants thought about it before appearing on the show? Is it hard to make a fire in the wild?

Oddthinking
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Czarek Tomczak
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  • Come to [Chat] :) –  Jun 11 '14 at 17:57
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    Wouldn't this be better on outdoors.se? – Affable Geek Jun 11 '14 at 17:58
  • @AffableGeek I agree, since it seems more about how-to. –  Jun 11 '14 at 18:01
  • *Basic question:* have you every started a fire without kit? Friction firedrills are harder than they look; even flint and steel is no cakewalk. Personally I have been successful under good conditions with a bowed firedrill, but never with a hands only drill. – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten Jun 11 '14 at 21:10
  • @Articuno: I see the question as "Survivor makes it out to be hard. Scouts make it out to be easy. Which are lying?" I think evidence that scouts can learn to do it quickly should be sufficient, even without explaining how they do it. – Oddthinking Jun 12 '14 at 11:01
  • @Oddthinking, but this is not what the TV show exhibits, it shows us people with no previous training unable to light a fire without a special tool, Scouts make it out to be easy because they have the training and practice (or the tools). This is indeed suitable to outdoors.se. This can be changed to "In a movie the character was able to light a fire using only its hands, can this be done in reality?" – SIMEL Jun 12 '14 at 12:31
  • @Ilya: I didn't make myself clear, sorry. I didn't mean scouts make it out to be easy because experienced scouts can light fires quickly on demand. I meant scouts make it out to be easy because they can (apparently) teach a 10-year-old how to light fires in an afternoon. If that is not true, and the scouts example actually reveals takes a lot of training and practice, then I think that is also an answer to the question. (I was never a scout nor tried this skill, so I will bow to the people with experience... I mean, references.) – Oddthinking Jun 12 '14 at 13:31
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    @Oddthinking Scouts make it out to be easy? I don't think so. Scouts make it out to be a fickle skill that takes attention to detail and patience. Regardless, as worded now, this question seems on topic here (but might get good insight over at [outdoors.se].. there are several questions about fire starting already) –  Jun 12 '14 at 13:56
  • Seems to be too opinion-based to me and I would argue that as a learned skill it likely gets easier the more you do it even though it is never truly easy. – rjzii Jun 12 '14 at 14:31
  • @Czarek: We are looking for notable claims that other people are making. No-one seems to be saying that it is easy to learn to make a fire. I thought the scouts were making an implicit claim, but the other commenters have suggested that isn't the case. – Oddthinking Jun 12 '14 at 16:04
  • @Oddthinking What if we flipped it so that the claim is "it is hard/difficult/time-consuming to make a fire in the wild"? It might be closed due to being unclear at that point, but at least it would be on-topic. –  Jun 12 '14 at 17:57

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