30 DAYS OF SURVIVAL FIRE SKILLS 🔥: DAY 6 - How to use a car battery to start a fire! . Find a smoldering tinder such as punky wood (dry rotting wood), newspaper, dry leaves, or the dry pith from a plant like I’m using here (mullein). Strip a thin wire from the vehicle or a pair of headphones and coil the middle around the tinder to increase surface area (and heat). If you don’t have gloves use 2 sticks to hold the wire and touch one end to the positive terminal and the other end to the negative