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During the winter when many of us would like to heat with wood, it can be tricky to know what to use for fire starter. Some of us will buy fire starting bricks from stores. However, there’s a few much cheaper ways. Here’s five things to use for fire starter:

1.Sycamore

Sycamore makes great fire starter especially if very dry and if you are using small branches. It burns hot, but doesn’t burn as long as a wood such as oak will. Sycamore is best used in conjunction with one or more of the following other fire starters because it does need help getting going.

2. Sweet Gum balls

Sweet Gum balls work great as fire starter. They have a lot of resin or sap in them and burn like little balls of fire or coal.

3. Green Cedar branches

Believe it or not, green Cedar also burns incredibly well. Much like the sweet gum balls, it has a lot of resin in it, and will readily ignite. That’s why they are not recommended to have as trees within 300 yards of you home. They explode in sparks when the tree is struck by a wild fire.

Here’s a short video of my lighting a fire using green cedar branches.

4. Wax and lint in cardboard egg cartons

If you stuff lint from your dryer into a cardboard egg carton and then add wax to the lint and cardboard, you will have yet another great fire starter. There’s a pretty good article on how and why to do this. You can read that here.

5. Cardboard and paper

Of course, cardboard and paper are also excellent for starting a fire. You will need more than just these in the fire place though when you start your fire or your fire will quickly die out. For more help on how to light your fire click here

What do you like to use for starting your fires? Let me know in the comments below.

Until next time,

Homestead in Health ya’ll!

Emily