Watch: How to Start a Fire With a Pencil and Jumper Cables

Ran out of gas and need some heat? If you have a pencil and some jumper cables, you might just have all you need to get an emergency fire started.

Strip away wood until the pencil “lead” (which is actually graphite) is exposed. Then you can connect one jumper cable clamp to each end of the graphite. The resulting short circuit will heat the graphite until it’s red hot, and the wood will begin to burn. Awesome!

I had to chuckle when “the king of random” instructed viewers to connect the red clamp to positive and black to negative because in this case, it doesn’t make a bit of difference which cable goes where. But it’s not a bad habit to get into.

Unlike many how-to videos, this one includes a few detailed bits of advice that will help the uninitiated–such as which side of the jumper cable clamp to use, how you can first lay a fire, and then connect the jumper cables to the battery, etc.

This might even work with a weak battery that doesn’t quite have enough juice to start your vehicle.

It’s a neat trick to know, anyhow.

Russ Chastain

Editor & Contributing Writer Russ Chastain is a lifelong hunter and shooter who has spent his life learning about hunting, shooting, guns, ammunition, gunsmithing, reloading, and bullet casting. He started toting his own gun in the woods at age nine and he's pursued deer with rifles since 1982, so his hunting knowledge has been growing for more than three and a half decades. His desire and ability to share this knowledge with others has also grown, and Russ has been professionally writing and editing original hunting & shooting content since 1998. Russ Chastain has a passion for sharing accurate, honest, interesting hunting & shooting knowledge and stories with people of all skill levels.