An important thing about being Manly is that it means you are able to deal with crisis situations. For example, if you are President, and your airplane gets hijacked, you should be able to kill all the hijackers and save your family. Knowing how to start a fire is an important part of any Man’s crisis survival package, and should be practiced at every opportunity.

There are many techniques to starting a fire. As a general rule, the less technology the technique uses, the more Manly it is, so the most Manly is the hand drill, followed by flint and steel, then magnifying the sun, then matches, etc. An important exception to this rule is the use of explosives and weaponry, such as flamethrowers or hand-grenades. These techniques involve the use of Man tools, and thus score Mantivity points on multiple fronts. The Mantivity score for starting a fire with matches, the most common technique, is 2.9.

Note: When there are many Men willing and able to start the fire, DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, have a competition for who is the best at starting a fire. While we usually encourage competition, in this case it is often the least Manly person who ends up building the fire, as he/she is the most willing to mention his experience starting fires at summer camp when he was 13 years old. Avoid this situation by offering to collect the wood, and then stepping in heroically when camper-boy fails.