SURVIVAL EQUIPMENTS

FIRE
Now a long long time ago.....Wait! Its not really that long ago when Mankind needed to be able to make fire to survive, In fact in huge areas of the earth people still need this skill to get through each day.
So how is fire relative to us today in the age of technology and electricity?
Well think of the scenarios that could happen to you, In an urban enviroment most of us are lucky to have electric or gas to make our hot water, cook our food, wash our clothes light the house and keep us warm. So what if the power goes out? this couldnt happen to me well never say never.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/08/14/power.outage/
This is one example of a lightning strike causing major disruption within Canada and the United States.
Now living in the prairies of Canada we tend to get very frigid weather for at least 4 months at a time and if we lost power we would have no way of heating, eating, lighting in fact doing anything.
So what are some easy things that could be done to plan ahead for such a scenario?

Well I keep around the house a number of cheap Bic lighters, matches, candles, 3 flashlights and 1 headlight, 2 small gas stoves and obviously lots of warm clothes.
with these options I could survive for some period of time.
Now what to use in the wilderness? If you head into the wilds for a camping trip or a hike you need to carry some form of fire starting, for 2 reasons really, one being a planned hike and second the possibility that something happens and you end up stuck in the wilds for longer than planned and your fun hike turns into a survival scenario.
I have been researching lots of ideas on the net and you tube and the following are the items that I find would work for me.

1/ Bic lighter I would carry 2 but be warned if they get wet they wont work and if its really windy they wont work, but they are cheap!
2/ Some kind of butane stormproof lighter is a good idea I have the Windmill Trekker which has a large fuel tank and is good in 80 MPH winds.
3/Magnesium block, these are solid blocks of magnesium which is stable in this form, with a knife you scrape off a pile of shavings and use the striker on the other side to ignite. The blocks are cheap and create a high heat for starting tinder, the main disadvantage is the wind again, the shavings are easily blown away!
4/Swedish fire steel, this is a very popular method a piece of high grade flint and striker which again creates very hot sparks, these are pretty much fool proof.
5/Ultimate survival technologies Blastmatch, this again creates very hot sparks
6/Cotton wool ball soaked in vaseline, these are a great tinder and once you fluff the balls up the cotton will burn in most conditons for a good 7-8 minutes, carry a dozen of these and youll have fire at any time.
7/Char cloth, this is just pure cotton that has been burnt inside a sealed metal tin till its charred, again this catches sparks very easily. Again this is cheap just cut up an old pure cotton T-shirt!
8/9V battery an wire wool, now this is a genius idea, just take some wire wool used in the kitchen and brush the surface with the points of the battery and watch the sparks take in the wool, again simple and cheap.

Theres also lots of "primitive"methods of fire starting but these are highly skilled techniques that you need to practice a lot to be able to rely on these methods, personally I make sure I have a combination of the options above to give me peace of mind.