Fire Piston History

History of the "not so infamous" Fire Piston

According to our research, and we could be wrong because we often are, no one really knows when the Fire Piston was developed. What they do know is that around the 1860's English explorers discovered the Fire Piston in use in the Indonesian jungles by natives. It appears that these tools were wdely used among many native people of that time and region.

The method of which the native people discovered such a sophisticated tool remains under debate. However the main theory proposed relates to an accidental method of discovery. Natives of the regions that utilized Fire Pistons often made blow guns for hunting. It is theorized that during the construction of a blowgun, while reaming the barrel, created a coal from the dust in the barrel of the blow gun. By putting two and two together, the natives discovered that by ramming a rod into a sleeve at a fast rate they could create enough heat to make a coal.

According to another source of information Europeans in the 1800's discovered the unique heating properties of compressing air while manufacturing air guns. They ingeniously began manufacturing these tools as fire starters. As useful as the Fire Piston is, for the masses of humanity the ordinary phosphorus match was just too easy to use and it pretty much put the Fire Piston out of favor.

If the match put these Fire Pistons out of business almost 200 years ago why are they popular now? Well many people are interested in ancient technology such as fire starting methods. Additionally an episode of Survivorman just aired with the host of the show Les Stroud, using a Fire Piston in a survival situation. Many builders of Fire Pistons have also discovered that they can be made much more easily out of modern materials much simplifying their construction and lowering their cost.