Fire

Give yourself a fighting chance of starting a fire when you’re out camping. This 4-piece kit packs an all-weather magnesium bar and friction tool for getting a clean spark, then gives it some extra oxygen with a collapsible bellows tube. You’ll also get an aluminum alloy whistle that can produce 120db, and a zippered carrying case.

The S created his version of the old grade school volcano science experiment, but replaced the baking soda and vinegar with matchsticks and fire, resulting in a dangerous and spectacular fireball. It goes without saying, but don’t try this at home.

For his latest video, The Q played with fire. He took the chemicals used to make matchstick heads and reconstituted them to make oversized versions. Then he erected gradually larger and larger sizes to set off a visually-impressive chain reaction. Things heat up around the 3:27 mark.

The image of fire that most of us have is the tip of a candle or a fireplace flickering, buy there are many other types of flame. Enjoy some variety in this clip from Yan Liang’s Envisioning Chemistry and Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s awesomely named Combustion Lab.

Offering up 18 times the blaze of this fiery experiment, the guys from Awesome Universe filled a tray with 90,000 individual matches, then set the whole mess on fire. They could have at least roasted some marshmallows over it before it burned out.

“Caution! Do not try it in the house.” The warning message from YouTuber The S is quite the understatement, as he shows us just what happens when you build a cannon entirely out of matches, fill its chamber with thousands of match heads, then light its fuse.

Bubble-blowing expert Dustin Skye shows off a really slick trick, in which he blows a soap bubble, fills it with butane, uses his breath to start a vortex, then lights it on fire, producing a tiny fire tornado. More here.

Steel wool is really useful for scrubbing and cleaning. But it’s also incredibly flammable. The guys from The King of Random decided to play with fire, and see how it might react if a lit piece of the shredded metal was dropped into a cup of styrofoam filled with liquid oxygen. Original video here.

From the “don’t try this at home” file, Brad Russell shows off what happens when a 2000-volt transformer from a microwave oven is applied to wood painted with sodium bicarbonate. The result is beautiful, tree-like patterns known as Lichtenberg figures.

One of the worst things that a firefighter can encounter is a backdraft – which happens when a fire has almost exhausted all oxygen, and then a door or window is opened, causing a violent explosion. The Slow Mo Guys captured 4K footage of this terrifying phenomenon.

While fiery Norse ships are normally reserved for viking funerals, we’ll make an exception for this truly awesome handmade fire pit from sculptor Trevor McIntire of ImagineMetalArt. It’s made from 18 ga. sheet steel and measures about 39″ long x 16″ wide.

Pull Start Fire is designed to be stupidly easy to use. All you have to do is pile wood around it and pull its string. It works even in 200+ mph winds, light rain, and with wet wood. It burns for over 30 minutes, more than enough to get a fire going.

Artist Steven Richter follows up on his epic Nazi facemelt sculpture with another iconic hothead. This time, he crafted a clay skull, wrapped it with a papier mache Nicolas Cage face, then burned it off to reveal the Ghost Rider beneath his skin.

Artist Danny Shervin precisely arranges granules of gunpowder on canvas or wood, then sets it on fire to create burnt-in pointillist art. You can buy originals and prints of his work on his website.

Instructables contributor Mikeasaurus shows off his ridiculously dangerous looking creation, a skateboard which leaves a fiery trail in its wake. It drips out a small amount of fuel triggered by a foot-controlled switch, and ignites it with an electric sparker. Full build log here.

In a video that is the very embodiment of “don’t try this at home,” guitarist Davidlap performs a brief solo while it looks like his hands are ablaze. He created special gloves to protect his hands from injury, and the fire was far enough from the guitar that it didn’t get damaged.

Just because you have a fancy fire suppression system in place doesn’t mean it will work when you need it. To ensure their system is fully functional, the Fort Indiantown Gap Army Reserve switched on the extinguisher system in their helicopter maintenance facility.

BrainfooTV shows us how to make nifty little rockets using ordinary household items like aluminum foil and strike-anywhere matches. They fire as far as 60 feet, and are surprisingly stable and accurate. The tailfins aren’t required, but they do make them look cooler.

Based on the same concept as the Pyro Board, The Blazing Beats is a two-axis version of a Rubens’ Tube, a device which emits variable heights of flame based on sound waves traveling through it. The result is a gas fireplace that dances to the beat of your music.

Duel with your friends while you roast up some tasty treats with RoastyzToastyz whimsical stainless steel tools that look like swords. Each one includes a marshmallow tip, with hot dog and tart roasting tips sold separately. A lightsaber hilt is also available.

Ellusionist took the technology from its wrist-mounted flash gun and incorporated it into a marker pen. The Pyro Fire Shooter Pen looks like a Sharpie and actually writes, but press its covert button for 3 seconds, and it will ignite and shoot flash paper over 10 ft.

Getting rid of weeds is a pain. Pluck them, and they come back. Kill them with chemicals, and the ground is poisoned for other plants. These organic corn farmers demonstrate a much more reliable, chemical-free, and downright spectacular method to clear the ground – FIRE!

A lot of fuss has been made about the flamethrower that Elon Musk’s Boring Company recently sold. But there’s a big difference between that glorified blowtorch and a proper military-grade flamethrower, as DriveTanks.com demonstrates in this comparison video.

A smart, more portable alternative to weighty metal firesafes, FirePRUF’s briefcase-style bag is made of material that can withstand temperatures up to 1000ºF for up to 60 minutes, with a 1200ºF peak, protecting documents and small items from being destroyed by fire.

Primitive Technology lulled us into thinking that making fire from scratch is easy. But as Mike Boyd quickly learns, it can be a frustrating and nearly impossible task if you don’t do your research beforehand. But with the right wood – and 8 hours of practice! – it can be done.

Peter Sripol and his buddy Sam spent a couple of days building a huge barbecue lighter, complete with a red body and black switch. Inside is a weed torch modified to fit a butane bottle. Watch them set off their leftover Fourth of July fireworks with it.

32 stunt performers put on an incredible show of courage, as each of them donned a firesuit, slathered on fire gel, and were lit ablaze to set a new Guinness World Record for the most simultaneous full-body burns. Each person had to remain on fire for at least 30 seconds.

(Loud) Engineers from Japan’s Tohoku University and National Institute of Technology are developing a truly unusual firefighting device. The machine self-balances on its water stream and can snake its way into difficult to reach locations as it sprays water on flames.

Engineer Allison Murray from the Purdue University Mechanical Engineering department shows us how their team used a customized inkjet printer to lay down a thin sheet of thermite, resulting in designs which explode into shapes when ignited. Learn more here.

A gruesome replacement for the logs in your gas fireplace or fire pit. Each skull is made from heat-tolerant ceramic and lava, layered over a steel structure. They’re not cheap, but they are certainly awesome. Also available in white, or with hollow eyes, or a demon’s head,