If you happen to need a fire sometime when you’ve got your car handy, you have a readymade fire starter built-into your car. No, I’m not talking about the cigarette lighter, although you can use that as a fire starter as well (another freebie). Nor am I talking about putting some tinder on the exhaust manifold to get it burning (yet another freebie). I’m talking about using the battery and a set of jumper cables to start a fire.

Car batteries have a lot of power in them, compared to the dry cell batteries that we use in flashlights and other small electronic devices. They have to, in order to provide enough “umph” to the starter motor, especially on a cold morning.

All you have to do is connect your jumper cables to the battery and touch them together right over your tinder. The electrical current going through the cables will produce some nice sparks to get your tinder going. Just be sure that you are ready, as you don’t want to do this enough times to kill your battery. By the way, even if your battery doesn’t have enough power to start the car, it will probably still have more than enough to start a fire.