Burning up the Supplies: Using Cargo Tape for Fire

Last week we talked about making our own raw hide glue. This week I wanted to actually break out the cargo tape. Now, I love cargo tape. It was one of the first C's I started packing with me everywhere I went and it's one of things that I see a lot of people skip on and I never understood why because of all of the benefits you get from packing it with you. It can do so much for you. In today's blog I want to specifically demo its uses in fire making. Now cargo tape can be used for a lot of things like dressing wounds, making repairs, and I have even seen some make rope out of it. We will try some of that next week, but for now I will just demonstrate it's power in a fire kit.

Gorilla brand cargo tape; it is my favorite brand of cargo tape. I think it does an excellent job of bonding things together. I also have Gorilla glue which we will be working with as well. On the bottle it says that it bonds to wood, stone, foam. metal, ceramic, glass, and more. This could be your skin if you really needed it in that sort of situation. Now I have what I call the cargo tape match. I have taken a strip of cargo tape, found the center of it lengthwise and folded one side in half so that the adhesive bonds to itself and left the other side open so that the adhesive is exposed. Now with a lighter and five seconds of flame, the cargo tape is now ablaze. This flame will last you for a while because it will take the cargo tape some time to burn down, but you do want to be cautious holding it because bits of flaming tape will melt off of it. With one quick breath I am able to put this flame out. I have read online where people say that this is a windproof flame. If I am able to blow it out that easily, it is not a windproof flame. This is an extender for your fire. It is not a wind or bad weather match, it is just an extender. If you just can't get your fire to start, this is what you want. Now I have tried catching it with a spark and just couldn't get it to catch, so if you are going to pack this with you, it is best to assume that you are going to need to have direct flame as well.

The next thing I want to show you is the Gorilla glue. I put a dab of it on a wood sliver and much like the cargo tape, with only five seconds of direct flame I have a match. The adhesive in both the cargo tape and the gorilla glue are hydrocarbon which means they want to burn much like fuel. Now what you can do with this when starting a fire is set this burning wood into your bird's nest, place some dry kindling on top, and you are good to go.

Now if I have any one out there who is doing ultra light backpacking, send me a message at bpackbushcraft@gmail.com. What I wanted to show you was that some people prefer to take the Gorilla Tape to Go. In comparison to the cargo tape we used early, it is roughly half the size. But similar to the larger tape it catches a flame all the same.


I hope you enjoyed looking at cargo tape in just a fire kit mentality. If you are wondering how to pack your cargo tape for your fire kit, if you use the Altoids tin that I am so fond of you could wrap your cargo tape around the tin or some people I have seen will just take some and roll it up and store it in the tin. Either way gets an A. Next week we will be looking at the repair and patching side of cargo tape and you know you won't want to miss it! As always feel free to comment by clicking the comment link at the end of the blog, hit the follow button in the top right corner, share this blog, and check back next week for a new one on Sunday 10pm (est). If you want to keep up with me and what I’m doing, Follow me on Facebook: @BPackBushcraft and on Twitter @BPackBushCraft. Lastly if video is more your style check out my YouTube Channel backpack bushcraft where there is a video version of this with the same title. Until next time, keep those fires burning and put another log on for me.