Coconut oil as a firestarter

Olive oil can be used the same way.

Vaseline is cheap though. But why not. Many things will work. Good first post. Welcome.

Consumables are single use. If you have enough cc oil to start a fire, you have too much cc oil.

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Consumables are single use. If you have enough cc oil to start a fire, you have too much cc oil.

Let's see.
You are out on your third day of a seven day walk.
For some reason you need to start a fire and don't have much dry stuff around or not much time to collect it and start a fire. (say it's raining hard and you are already cold)
A teaspoon of coconut oil, or olive oil, with some wick, inside the bottom of a can or a piece of foil will burn for 10 minutes or more.
Easier than striking the magnesium bar over and over again (well if you had one anyway) or burning several matches hoping one will eventually work.
What's better in that situation, keeping the extra tea spoon of oil for the single use food or a warm, fire ?
(BTW, that is a rhetorical question….)

I guess it would all.depend if it was extra virgin coconut oil or not. That stuff is good.
It's just word play. I guess you could burn it after you've consumed it. To the OP…A good suggestion. Good use of what you have in an emergency situation. Thinking outside the box will save your life someday.

I think there's a pretty simple (although hard to actually calculate) equation for this – if you're in a survival situation where a fire is a good idea, you are potentially losing calories due to being cold. So do you avoid burning more calories through having the warmth of a fire than you would gain from eating the oil? I think most likely the answer is yes in any situation where you would actually need to do this.

Great idea, by the way. I almost always have some sort of fat available when backpacking.

Coconut oil is awesome but I haven't figured out a good way to carry it. When melted it seems to know how to get out of any container, and it's too solid sometimes to put in a squeeze tube or bottle. Otherwise it's very nice on skin, tastes good in your food and heck, if you can mop up the mess it makes with a cotton ball and start a fire with it, then yeah.

So, I oil my pan with a saturated cottonball, then use the cottonball to start the fire.

Anything with high oil/fat content will work. Like Fritos.

Still, cotton balls with about 1/3 coverage in Vaseline, wrapped in waxed paper covers, are my favorite. Good, long burn, and by fluffing up the dry cotton part it can be started very easily with a couple of sparks from a firesteel, which is also often the back-up igniter. These two were made for each other!

So, I oil my pan with a saturated cottonball, then use the cottonball to start the fire.

That only makes sense if you're using a wood fire. The cottonball is merely kindling, which still must be ignited by something else (Bic, etc), and if you're using alcohol/Esbit/isobutane the cottonball/oil isn't needed.

So most folks would end up rarely — if ever — needing it. I employed it only a few times when using an Emberlit Mini (twig stove) or building campfires (very rarely). Even in those situations, most often dry leaves and carefully chosen and properly stacked twigs can get the fire going without any special kindling.

More important are the primary and backup starters, such as Bic and matches, or firesteel, etc

Tampons are even better than cotton balls. Multi-use, sort of. I mean, one use on any given trip depending on the more urgent need.

And guys can claim they're carrying in case of nosebleed.