Last updated on May 31st, 2016 at 12:59 am

If you’re out camping and find yourself without any matches or lighter, you can still start a fire. Starting a
fire with an aluminum can has been done for years. A soda or beer can will also do the trick for you. This
is a great survival trick you need to learn as it is usually not too hard to find a can in the wild.

Ensure that the bottom of the can is well‐polished. You can use steel wool if you have one handy, or foil
wrappings of chocolate bars, or a toothpaste with baking soda for this purpose. Polishing the can will
take sometime so you have to be patient until you could no longer see the writing on the can. You
should continue polishing until you get a mirror‐like finish. Once this is achieved, use the can to focus
sunlight onto your tinder or char cloth.

Focus the sunlight into as small a point as possible into the cloth which should be about one to one and
a half inches away from the bottom of the can. This should be a sufficient distance to create a reflection,
the brightest one you can find. If you don’t have tinder or char cloth, you may use paper, dry leaves or
other materials that easily burn, but dark‐colored tinder is the best.

Watch the video to get a better idea of this trick.