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Genuine flint and steel fire starting.  There's a bit of a story behind this one.  A bit before midnight I noticed the scoutmaster walking slowly along the edge of High Creek.  It was very dark so I approached him with my powerful maglight.  "Orson, whatcha doing?" says I.  "Looking for flint," he says.  Hmm, this looks a lot like an alluvial fan, limestone pebbles, plain old rocks, tons of "Leverite" (ie, Leave-er-right-there) but no flint.  Well I have plenty of flint from southern Utah.  So off we go, he heads for his house to fetch some denim to make a type of fire starting charcoal or char-denim, I head for home to fetch a steel file (striker) and flint.  I call my wife and when I get home she's sitting on the floor striking flints to find the best one.  Now there's a person interested in success!  Oh, I forgot to mention the police stopping my scoutmaster in Richmond, taillight was out but I'm sure it seemed odd to have scoutmasters out at midnight looking for stuff.  Then again, maybe not very odd at all.  Back in camp before 2 a.m., up again at 6.  Next time I think I'll use a match.

The scoutmasters prepared the denim by putting it in a metal can, a flat metal can such as 16 millimeter movie film comes in works great.  Put the can in the fire for a while, take it out.  How long?  It's an art or a secret.  I don't know, but it is pretty much the same thing as burning off a lantern mantle. 

What you get is an extremely thin, delicate black substance that will hold a spark and you can blow on it to make the spark grow.