PYRO Putty Winter, Summer, Eco Blend, Emergency Survival Fire Starter (Blue Winter Blend)

My son-in-law seems to be able to get a fire going with small sticks and a bit of paper. I find that method problematical. Using this, I was able to get it going easily. You just pull off some, which leaves points that are easy to light. Stick the lump onto some klindling, light the tip and voila!I didn't buy enough of it.

As far as how this fire starter performs? Well it goes above and beyond, seriously, this stuff burns quite hot as well as for a lengthy period of time as advertised; sure to get any emergency fire going in even terrible conditions! It's entirely wind resistant, you can drop it in the water, it'll float, then you merely squeeze any water out and it will ignite just fine. Also it's extremely easy to ignite, a tiny spark, or just touching a lighter / match flame to the "fluffed" prepared end of it and it lights instantly.The only downside is how harsh this stuff is.. Trust me when I say, you do NOT want to be near the smoke this putty emits; not even a bit of it breathed in from the wind coming back at you. I was steering clear of it, but when I tested out it's resistance to wind by blowing on it several times; I pulled in a few bounced back / mild inhalations of the smoke and it was absolutely terrible. My nose, up through my sinuses, trachea, bronchial tubes and eyes all burned rather severely for 35-40 minutes until it began to subside. I took my gloves off and removed my contacts, flushing my eyes as well as getting fresh air until it improved but it was not a good time. It is extremely irritating due to the composition of the putty (synthetics & metal oxides) that you are burning.. So, you definitely want to wear gloves when prepping a piece of this to start a fire, and stay out of the smoke. If you don't have gloves, do yourself a favor and do not touch your face or rub your eyes after handling it. I wore gloves, but the smoke really was unpleasant despite being such a small brief dose of it. No wonder there is the green putty that's a "bug repellant" XDAnyway, it IS a synthetic fire starter marketed for emergencies / survival / etc so it's not a reason to avoid buying it. For it's intended purpose, it absolutely performs very well, exceeding all expectations. Really, there's nothing else out there on the market like it that works as well as this does. The irritation aspect is no different than say, liquid fuel, I wouldn't get that in my eyes or breathe it in either; my experience was merely an unfortunate, unintended incident that occurred. I still thought this should be known so that you don't stay too close to it while its burning, or rather, just don't be downwind of it when building up your fire initially and you will be just fine.Overall, it's worth the money if you wish to have a reliable, powerful, compact, and affordable emergency fire starter for whatever your needs may be!

Works great, last a long time and the sellers ship very quickly.

The stuff catches really quickly, and it doesn't require too many pinches to get something going. If you go find some dry kindling, and smear a couple of pinches on that kindling, and slowly feed bits of bark and twigs as the product catches, you will have a fire in no time. This is something that should be in everybody's gear bag not only for planned camping trips, but also in case you are stranded or for some reason find yourself an emergency situation and need to stay warm. For those that have an emergency first aid kit in their car at all times, this should go hand in hand with something like that.

And a nickel size dollop was enough to drive the moisture out of and even catch these intermediate sticks; it drives the moisture completely out of proper kindling. Even when frozen the (eco/green) putty was easy enough to dig out of the tin with a striker, so the others shouldn't even be an issue. The exposed fibers take sparks from a ferro rod without any problem. Once started, this product is amazingly wind resistant; attempts to blow it out just sent it flying, still alight. It floats (and burns) on water, and if you douse it you can relight it as long as you expose some fresh fibers (which can admittedly be tricky if you're using only a small amount).As it is August, I can't say yet how the putty will act when everything is soaked and frozen and your fingers are too cold to perform dexterous tasks. However, with how it has acted so far I can definitely see it making a difference when it comes to those miserable situations you sometimes find yourself in.The option to use as much or as little as you need is one of the best parts about this tin. Sometimes the light gets away from you but the situation isn't bad enough to warrant using a whole disk/cube/square of starter when you only have a set number, so a pinch of this gets the job done without significantly impacting your resources.Additionally, the screw top lid gives me confidence that the putty will store for many years on its own. I have other fire starting products that were packaged in tins that were not air-tight, and four years later they have definitely lost some of their accelerant. If you have a tin or two you want to put away, you might want to tape the seam, though this probably isn't even necessary. I like a silicone self-fusing tape for its lack of residue and ease of removal, but duct/electrical gets the job done just as wellIt is not entirely foolproof of course, and like every other firestarter you can force it to fail. However, the points above are what sold me on it originally and what will bring me back. Thanks for your time