Review: EverFire fire brick

When it comes to fires, we have many traditional options available from: gas, charcoal, heat beads, and wood. Apart from gas, lighting a fire can be tricky and time consuming.  I like to use off-cuts and dead-fall whenever possible, and heat-beads to cook on, and reclaimed timber as firewood.  In getting a fire going, the use of everyday firelighters although cheap, sometimes produce fumes or smoke that isn't pleasant. Also you can only use them once.

 I believe I have located something that is a cheap, cost effective, eco-friendly alternative. A clean burning reusable firelighter combined with methylated spirits that burns odorless and can be used again and again. These are the EverFire fire-starting system. They can not only used as a fire lighter, you can use them to cook a meal with no other fuel source. Just place them on a solid non-flammeable surface light them up and place your pan right on top.

The EverFire bricks are made from a 100% natural mineral which is used in various industries and it's totally environmentally friendly.

The bricks are soaked in a liquid accelerant and lit. The creators recommend methylated spirits or ethanol as it is clean burning, with no fumes or smoke emitted while burning. Otherwise you may use any accelerant of your choice, but always be cautious and store in container of choice in a safe location out of the reach of children. Watch their accelerant tests.

The bricks are then lit with match or lighter and the fuel burns. Burn time for metho is normally 10-12 minutes. When cooking only with EverFire firelighters by placing the pot or pan directly onto the firelighters you can increase the burn time to around 17-20 minutes.

  I've found by the firelighters' third use it will give the longest burn time. Burning itself in and having its "pores" burnt clean of the manufacturing process I believe.

After many uses the firelighters will eventually break down back into their natural form. All you need to do is crumble them up and place in your garden as it is very good for your soil and plants.

After their full burn time, and after 15-20 minutes cooling-down, it can be returned to a fuel bath and recharged. The big ones use between 50-70ml per charge. The small ones between 25-50ml. If you remove the firelighter from the fire and put out with a damp cloth, you will use less than a complete burn. Cooling the bricks reduces the thermal shock they experience when dropping into fuel, thus reducing the risk of cracking and becoming less effective. That said the makers suggest hat even cracked they will function effectively.

I found that a single EverFire brick, soaked with methylated spirits was not only hot enough and long lasting a burn enough to send my Fire Box stove red hot but also boil enough water to make two cups of tea and toast some mini-hot-dogs, as well as starting a fire to make lunch on.

For the purposes of domestic fireplace use, its possible to leave the bricks in the fire until it's died and then retrieve them for recharging, to no ill effect. In some scenarios if it is easy to remove, you can do so. This will increase the overall life of the bricks. In closed fires like Coonaras, or other enclosed indoor fires, you can ease he retrieval process by starting the fire with the firelighters towards the front of the fire. After about 15-20 minutes of fire-starting, just remover firelighter and place somewhere safe to cool.

Once cold return to storage container and recharge for next time. The creators suggest they will last for 30+ fire before they are at risk of cracking and crumbling, but this may vary with use. They seem pretty hardy to me and if treated gently, I can't imagine them just falling apart.













A question came up about dousing the EverFire bricks, should the need arise, and what happens if they get wet or are submerged/dropped in water? smothering with damp cloth should be sufficient to extinguish a metho fueled brick, but if it comes to pass that a brick is submerged in water, thy will absorb it, reducing its effectiveness. However correction this is as simple as returning the brick to it's recharging station and soaking it in fuel. Letting it soak for about 30 minutes. Remove the brick, light it and let it burn out, repeat this process a couple of times and the EverFire brick will steam off any absorbed water will be as good as new again.

In all Webers, fire pits, BBQs, Spits, open fires, or anywhere you need to light wood, heat beads, charcoal, or even to use by themselves to cook or create a heat source. As well as a heat source and limited light source, they can be used as a mosquito repellent by adding a few drops of citronella oil to the metho it is fueled by. Multi-function is huge selling point in my books.

The EverFire brick can be cut and trimmed by hacksaw cutting, should the need arise. The bricks themselves are surprisingly light, even when soaked. Jeff the creator suggested pre-soaking the bricks in metho and then bagging them individually before putting into a tub for transport. A small bottle of fuel can be brought along for on the fly recharges but three pre-primed bricks gives a lot of burn-time ready to go. I did so on a recent hiking trip and we had hotdogs and tea on a windy bench and minimal weight addition. The standard sized bricks weigh only 100g but the larger jumbo bricks weigh 250g and both absorb more fuel and burn longer. Three individually bagged bricks, and a lighter fit nicely in a take-away tub, and seal in any fuel vapors nicely.

EverFire sells their blocks in three sets:

Combo 3: 500g containing 2 large bricks and 1 standard brick. Also a handy storage container for the firelighters.

Standard 5: 500g containing 5 standard bricks. Also a handy storage container for the firelighters.

Jumbo 5: 1250g containing 5 large bricks. Also a handy storage container for the firelighters.


I found these to be easy to use, kid and pack-safe, light and handy fire starters as well as a novel stand alone fire source. Methylated spirits are a cheep, safe and easy to manage fuel. My thanks to Jeff for the free sample pack. I can see these becoming a staple of my camping and backyard firepit kit.

Review: FireCone

This is an awesome little fire-starter that I have backed on Kickstarter, and was lucky enough to receive a prototype to share my thoughts on.

The FireCone is a tunable alcohol burner that is operable for starting fires, igniting barbeques, emergency heating, or just holding a candle in style. It will burn a bunch of different liquid fuels; alcohol gel, 70% isopropyl alcohol, BioEthanol, Methanol, and denatured alcohol (methylated spirits).

The principle of the thing is that there are two pieces, the base and the cone. Liquid fuel is added to the base, and when lit, convection and conductive heat act to continually vaporise and drive the fire. The scalloped notches in both the base and the cone allow the operator to adjust the amount of air that feed inside the cone, allowing the FireCone to be tuned, just as you would a Bunsen Burner.

The internal cavity is the primary fuel reservoir but the external ring also works well, it holds around 30mL of fuel in total. The cone and the base are both textured, which both aids the wicking properties but also gives better surface area for gripping and moving it around when adjusting the flame. The cone part can even be inverted to offer even more burning surface area, but this eliminates the very specifically engineered convection currents you get when it is in its "volcano" configuration.

Here's some wood pyrochemistry for you: Wood ignites at between 190oC (374oF) and 260oC (500oF) by producing volatile gases. Around 590oC (1,100F), the volatile gases ignite when mixed with oxygen. The more oxygen a fire gets, the cleaner and hotter it burns, which is where the venting of the FireCone come in to effect.

As wood reduces to charcoal the temperature potential increases and some of the best wood stoves achieve temperatures up to 1095oC (2,000oF). As a woodstove starter the Firecone has been designed to survive those temperatures.

There are four metal options of the FireCone, bronze and titanium, investment cast in Oregon, and a high-carbon cast steel and a stainless steel model, cast in Korea. the fine investment cast detail (like a map of Oregon, the lettering on the bottom and just the quality of the finish and its unprecedented durability make it something worth admiring as art, as well as being super functional.

The biggest difference between stainless and carbon models is the rusting. Carbon models will develop a surface rust in an oxidized reddish brown pattern, whereas stainless doesn’t rust. There is always the fear with stainless steel that it could get brittle after many fire cycles, but the testers and manufacturers haven't been able to break one, nor could I.


They have been left in woodfires fire at least 50 times, run over by a truck, and then hit with a 35 ton wood splitter. Apparently with a little wire brush work or rub it in the sand the patina finish is incredible, I look forwards to seeing that myself…. but the carbon model will form surface rust. I'm going to season mine as I would any of my cast iron cookware. It may smoke a bit when I start them, but it will be cleaner to store.


Designed as a virtually indestructible alcohol burner that is tunable to start fires or make heat without smoke, soot or ash, he FireCone certainly lives up to all expectations. The fact that the adjustable inlet ports that provide tuning of the flame to various fuels and burning conditions is a real delight, and gives you considerably more control over your fire, without sacrificing the superb robustness of a two part cast metal tool. I'd barely even count it as "moving parts" as far as maintenance goes. Even with the base alone you get great utility but don't get a tunable flame. I can see it working as a base to cook off, and when inverted, the cone part might just be stable enough to use as a trivet.


As if you need to ask, why a titanium option? Being relatively light when compared to steel, it will heat up faster, and doesn't rust. Titanium withstands more heat and is more thermally stable than steel, which means if you expect to us it in arctic conditions it won't break, whereas carbon or stainless steel can become brittle and runs the risk of shattering.

Bronze is an age old, thermally stable, dense and hard material, making it perfect for rugged camp gear, but it's heavy. The four options break down into the following weights: bronze 780g (1.72lbs), the carbon and stainless (420ASTM) steels 710g (1.58lbs) and titanium a mere 400g (0.89lbs).

A couple of notes. Fire is hot, fire burns. Liquid fuels can slosh, spill and run. Running fire is bad. Always us caution with a liquid fuel and don't explode. Once it's been going the FireCone really heats up and retains that heat, so be advised when you've had it going and want to re-fuel it. The same vaporisation effect that makes it burn so cleanly, also works again t you when refuelling. Depending on your liquid-fuel, the conditions are in and the fuel wood you are trying to light, you may need to do a top up to get a really good burn going, so be aware, and be safe.




I've had a lot of fun trying mine out, burning methylated spirits mostly, but I also tried it out with a slosh of my Overproof (52%) Captain Morgan's dark spiced rum, which burnt with a delightful smell and cheerful light, but with the expected "why is the rum gone?" regrets. I started a little fire with it with no problems, and it certainly lives up to expectations.

Home Front: just pop to the supermarket

Here's the thing. We (and I presume most of you, my readers) live in the industrialised world. Hot and cold running water, 24/7 power, high speed(ish) internet. A industrialised food transportation system. We have supermarkets, corner stores, grocers and the like, a stones throw from our homes. Perhaps a short drive in your Urban Assault Vehicle.

We can just assume that the shelves will be stocked, the lights will be on, and we'll be able to pretty much do all our shopping in one spot.

The problem is, even in industrial and affluent society like mine, these services can be disrupted but simple things. Power outages of more than a few hours tends to make supermarkets cull their perishable stock (pay attention, urban scavengers, you might be able to pick up a truckload of just-begin-to-thaw frozen goods).

Imagine what fuel shortages, road closures, quarantines or other long time disruption to supply chains would do.

My local supermarket is a marvel of modern convenience, is only 650m from my house. Easy walking distance for a bottle of juice, or a bag of chips, and we even drive when we do a big shop. How would it fare in the event of a disaster? How long would it take to empty of supplies? How long would it hold up if locked down?

It gives me pause for thought,  perhaps it might for you too.

I certainly have a mental list of "what to grab in the first few days of an event" which I will write up and share shortly.