My wife (who, in a previous life, did things like take two-week back
country canoe trips with her High Adventure Explorers post in Texas,
with responsibility for food and material planning for twelve 18-year
olds, ie, she can look out for herself) encouraged me to write:

We were car camping once in a rental car and wanted to start a camp
stove. We had very carefully packed matches. Turned out there are two
different kinds of even Ohio Blue Tips, safety- and non. Laura had
packed safety in a match safe. No strike-strip.

We fussed over the notion for several minutes that we had a car with a
full gas tank and a lot of readily available energy in its battery, and
we couldn't figure out how to light a safe fire. What to do?

I extracted a bulb from the brake light and crushed the glass envelope.
I instructed Laura to get in the car and step on the brake pedal when
told to do so. I held a match on the hot filament, lit the match, lit a
candle from the match, etc. We had a nice dinner.

We stopped at a hardware store on the way to the car drop-off point to
get a new bulb. We considered presenting the receipt to the rental
company: "We found that the bulb needed to be replaced..."

Keep track of match type.

David


wrote:

The two basic types of match are those which may be scratched anywhere
versus the 'safety' type which can on be struck on an abrasive pad
treated with red phosphorus. The 'strike-anywhere' type are
preferred since there's no need to provide for the special
striking-surface.

The surprise came from hearing some folks insist that the
'strike-anywhere' type of match was not available, at least to
them. I assume they are the victim of some do-gooder regulation which
allows only the sale of 'safety-type' matches in their locale.