Fire kit
Assuming that your firemaking kit or "strike-a-light" is basically a flint-and-steel kit, here are the essential components.
Flint
It's usually best to start with "known good" flint pieces, particularly when you are beginning to learn the technique. Later, you can collect stones that you find along your trails, and experiment with them.
Flint is a hard and glossy stone, with a slight milky tinge, often dark grey. The pieces that are best for fire-starting are usually flat, and have at least one sharp edge that can be struck against the steel. If any rock, when struck, emits a "ringing" sound, then it's a good choice for experimentation.
Other types of fire-making stone can include chert, quartz, agate, carnelian, jade, bloodstone, chalcedony.
- If you search for "flint chips" at Dixie Gun Works, you may find that which you seek.
Steel
Not every piece of steel or iron is good for making fire with flint. It's unclear which qualities make a steel better or worse, but in recent ages, many strange alloys have been introduced on Arda. It's a thing to experiment with. If you find a steel that looks to have been forged, and was made for firemaking, it's worth trying.
The making of a firesteel is one of the first projects attempted by a beginning blacksmith.
Tinder
When flint is struck against steel, sparks fly off, and these need to be caught in some dry, easily combustible substance.
To this end, many of us make charcloth which is a plant-based fabric such as linen or cotton, that has been baked, or charred, such that the fabric becomes black and brittle like charcoal. A tinderbox is used to keep the tinder dry.
Charcloth is something of a "reenactorism"; hand-woven plant-based fabric was somewhat more precious than the factory-made version we have today, although it was indeed used for this purpose. But dry rotting wood or "punk" was be also charred for use as tinder. Amadou or other types of tinder fungus can be prepared for use as tinder as well.
Small lengths of fibrous cord such as hemp or jute are useful to carry, since they can be unraveled and used as a secondary tinder with the charcloth.
The technique
A word or two needs to be said about the How, as well as the What.
- The sparks that you are seeking to create, come from the iron. They are struck off by glancing blows from the flint's sharp edge. So make sure, of course, that the flint has a sharp edge. Strike the steel with the most glancing of blows, not a chop as much as a scrape. Some folk hold the steel in place and move the flint, and others will hold the flint still and strike it with the steel. That's a matter of preference.
- Be aware, that tiny pieces of sharp flint and burning steel are flying about. Take care not to get any of these dangerous particles in your eyes, or the eyes of any on-lookers.
More: Fire starting
Other firemaking tools
Other options for firemaking can be carried in the same kit.
- A burning lens of glass or crystal can be used to light a pipe or start a fire. Such a thing was known to the ancient Greeks.
- Matches were used in middle-Earth, so a pack of these would not be out of place. Historically, these were first merely slivers of pinewood, soaked in molten sulfur, and were used for sustaining a flame that was got by other means. The modern "strike anywhere" match is a comparatively recent invention.