About this product
Ordinary matches fail in exactly the conditions where a fire matters most. They go soft in a humid pack, they blow out in a breeze, and once they are wet they are finished. These are built the other way round: the head carries its own oxidiser, so once struck the match keeps burning through wind and rain, and the coating lets it light even after being wet.
Each tube holds twenty matches with poplar wood sticks, 48 mm long, and the tube itself is 20 mm across and 56 mm long – about the size of a lipstick. The seal on the tube is the part that matters for Tanzanian use: in coastal humidity, a cardboard matchbox left in a pack for a season will not strike at all, while a sealed tube comes out of storage ready.
The obvious use is camping and trekking – lighting a stove on a wet morning on Kilimanjaro, or a fire at a camp in the Southern Highlands. The less obvious use is at home. A tube in a kitchen drawer, a vehicle glovebox and an emergency bag costs almost nothing and covers the evening when the power is out, the gas lighter is flat and the matchbox has gone damp.
Strike them away from your body, let the head burn through its initial flare before moving the match, and keep the tube closed and away from children. They are matches doing a harder job than normal, and the first second burns hot.
Windproof and Waterproof Survival Matches Kit