In survival situations people generally refer to the rule of threes: three minutes without oxygen, three hours without shelter in inclement weather, three days without water, and three weeks without food. These are general guidelines to help you prioritize in the middle of a survival situation to effect self-rescue or at least stay alive long enough for someone else to find you. Survival is rarely a situation that we think of in our everyday life. Most of us are far more interested in getting to work on time, picking up the kids from school, and paying our bills but with the increased frequency of terrorist attacks and civil unrest along with the ever present threat of natural disasters like earthquakes, plane crashes, tornadoes, or hurricanes, your encounter with the concept of survival is just two wrong turns away.

I have mentioned that I enjoy thinking about EDC (Every Day Carry) systems because they seek to find a solution to a list of possible problems that we might encounter should Mr Murphy decide to enact his law in our day. Below is a picture of the tools and gear that come out of my pockets and off of my person after a day’s work at the office or out on the weekend. I don’t expect to need an automatic knife to defend myself from an imminent threat that is only inches away, I don’t really expect to need my handgun to defend my life or the life of someone placed in danger by the selfishness of desperate people, nor do I expect the need to have to start a fire in the woods when my car has broken down and I am far from home. Whether I expect these things or not, I have planned for them and the mantra “if we fail to plan, we plan to fail” is just as real as the threats that you could potentially face.

Fire is an essential survival tool and it is one of the simplest ones to overlook. You don’t need to be a smoker to carry around a lighter. A lighter allows you to produce one of the most effective and efficient tools that you can have in your survival or EDC toolbox with minimal weight cost. It is for that reason that you will never find me without the tools I need to start a fire. With that need in mind, there are several different tools that you can carry every day to be able to produce fire when you need it.

I have always held a nostalgic soft spot for Zippo lighters. I have never smoked a cigarette in my life (nor do I plan to) but I have owned two different Zippos over the course of several years. There is something brilliant about their simplicity, their clean lines, and their bombproof function. One of my repeated rants around here is to “buy American”. I believe in investing in companies here at home who produce a superior product with a good warranty. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against well-made foreign products but I believe in investing in innovative companies here at home because of the positive effects on our own economy. Zippo adheres to this concept.

Made in Bradford, PA, Zippo lighters are a cool link to the past with historical style and bone-simple function. For generations the name Zippo has been synonymous with quality. While I am going to be honest and say that the standard is not as high as it once was, they still produce a decent product. Needless to say, it didn’t take a lot of convincing to get me to add one of their Armor line of lighters to my EDC system as my fire source. If you have never carried a Zippo lighter what I discovered might surprise you and if you have then you will probably understand exactly what I am saying.

Thanks to the magic of Amazon Prime, I picked up the American flag Armor series Zippo lighter and had it two days later (I don’t bother asking what manner of dark magic this is because I don’t want to know). Since I already owned another Zippo lighter before, I had a can of their “premium lighter fluid” so I topped it off and did what any proud Zippo owner would do next: I played with it like seven-year-old with a Christmas present. With a quick YouTube search, you can find all sorts of tricks you can do with a Zippo to feel even cooler than you do just by owning one. It’s almost like you channel the old school cool factor of James Dean and Dean Martin. It is a throwback to a bygone era where style and sophistication immersed you into the universe of a noir film that you saw as a child. Either way, the cool factor is there. Unfortunately, cool don’t start no fires so let’s move forward and talk about some of the high and low points of this classic design.

As part of the Armor series, these lighters are supposed to have a heavier-duty outer shell and deep relief carvings. My lighter felt heavier than my old-school four-leaf clover lighter did but still light enough that it didn’t feel like you picked up an iron ingot and dropped it in your pocket. The relief carvings of the flag will make you say ’murica at least once. These carvings give it a neat antique feel like you dragged it out of the past. The function is the same as any Zippo lighter and the guts, I assume, are the same also. There is a reservoir filled with a cotton material which will soak up the fuel and deliver it to the wick so that when you spin the sparking knob, it will strike against the flint piece and ignite the wick. There really isn’t much to these things and they aren’t rocket science. The design exudes simplicity.

The Guts Cottony goodness! As it should be…

For those of you who have owned or collect Zippo lighters, you will probably find what I am about to say to be pretty common fare but to those of you who are researching for a good lighter or fire source to carry on a daily basis, you might want to buckle in and especially so if you are really excited about diving into this piece of history. The main problem that I have with Zippo lighters in general, and this one is no exception, is that they will run out of fuel. “But, Jake, so will a Bic!” Yeah, but not while it is in your pocket. The Zippos I have used in the past and this one as well all eventually run out of fuel when you are using them, but they will also run out if you DON’T use them. I have carried mine every day for about six months and used it pretty sparingly. I mostly use them to fuse the ends of paracord or singe the odd thread on a project but when I need it, I want it to work. I can’t tell you of the number of times where I have pulled my zippo from my pocket hoping to produce that glittering tongue of flame only to strike it repeatedly and get nothing for my efforts other than teasing sparks and a black thumb from the soot on the striking wheel. I can make allowance for a lighter to run out of fuel when it is used and even if it is not particularly efficient and just gulps fuel, but I have little use for a lighter where the fuel evaporates or becomes impotent when it is simply sitting in my pocket. This has been a constant source of frustration for me, especially after having paid about $35 for one.

So that brings me to my next issue: the cost. You can buy a pack of Bic lighters for about two or three bucks. They always light, they float, they are cheap, and when you get to the point where you are done with them then you can toss them. It’s like the difference between a Honda Rebel and a Harley Davidson Sportster. A Honda will run every time that you push the button, it will get good gas mileage, and you can use and abuse it until it is finally done and then you just get rid of it. It is even cheaper and more affordable than the Harley but, at the end of the day, it just isn’t a Harley. There’s just something to be said for owning a Zippo. The Zippos are backed by a lifetime warranty. If it breaks or malfunctions then you just ship it back and they fix it for you. Plus, to go along with the feeling that you are using an antique that is packed with aesthetic cool, it just seems like an enduring heirloom. It is something that you could pass on to your kids so that it could run out of fuel in their pockets instead of yours.

The Zippo lighter is a conversation piece: its bold and beautiful lines making you feel like a gentleman, a man of class and sophistication. I love to show it off and be that guy who snaps his fingers to light the flame ala Reservoir Dogs. It has a cool that outweighs its initial lack of dependability. And that “initial” word was thrown in there on purpose. Something else I have encountered with both of my Zippos is that after getting so frustrated at them losing their fuel and wanting to fling them across the room, one day I just get fed up with carrying them for a while and then drop them in a drawer only to forget that I own them. Then one day when I am going through all my junk drawers, I see it and think, “I should really start carrying this thing again.” Then I pull it out, fill it back up with “premium lighter fluid” and carry it for a while as I wait for the other shoe to drop, knowing that I will soon be left high and dry by this lighter when it will eventually refuse to light for me again. Funny thing, though: it doesn’t. All I can figure is that when I drop it in my junk drawer or let it sit empty for a long while that little lighter gnomes go into the lighter and change the chemical composition of the cotton wadding inside the lighter reservoir making it actually hold onto the fuel I put in because from that point on it actually seems to hold more fuel. I’m not really sure what happens but it seems like it works better after that. Either way, it happens for the better.

Finally, we come to the next selling point and my final point of interest: the windproof lighter. Zippo bills their lighters as being windproof via the little guard that surrounds the flame and the wick. Technically, yeah, they are windproof at least more so than a matchbook but a good strong gust of wind will still knock your fire out. Realistically, none of us will be using these things in a hurricane or in a tornado but for the times when you need it, you need it. If you live in an area that is prone to strong wind gusts, this may not be for you. You might want to look into a butane lighter as opposed to the Zippo. For those of us who won’t run into these kinds of obstacles, it will provide adequate wind defense for your EDC needs.

Pros:

Made in the USA

Lifetime Warranty

Definite Cool-factor

Refillable means Reusable

It produces a flame… most of the time

Windproof

Cons:

Windproof?

Price compared to a Bic lighter

Will actually run out of fuel if not used

Even though it is reusable it requires new parts

Warranties don’t help in a bad situation

Final Thoughts:

The Zippo and I have a love/hate relationship. I love its nostalgic cool and how it hearkens to an age of class and style. I love that it is made here in the good ol’ US of A and that it is backed by the company that made it because they believe in their product. I love that when you have it you only need one because you can refill it and pass it on to be an heirloom for generations to come. I do, however, hate that it holds fuel about as well as a Hummer H2 on a cross country trek and that even though it is billed as “windproof” it is a pretty shaky claim. I can’t tell you the number of times that I have ranted and raved about how worthless these things are but yet, at the end of the day, I still carry one because it just gets better with age. Every man should own one if only to toss in a junk drawer and wait for the lighter gnomes to come and work their magic.