How To Quickly Dry Out a Wet Lighter

One thing that may happen when you are out camping is your lighter can get wet. You may be in the rain, left your lighter in your pocket and jumped in the lake, or even dropped in into water. No matter how it happened you have a soaked lighter and need to get it working again. I dropped my camping lighter in the creek and had to get it out of the water when I was out fishing. When I got back to camp and tried to light the fire my lighter was still wet. Tried several things that mostly failed until I finally figured it out.

So how do you quickly dry out a wet lighter? First you need to find a surface that like a table, log, stick, or rock. Next, turn the lighter upside down with the flame hole pointing away from you and push the flint wheel down on the hard surface and roll the wheel away from you. You may have to remove the safety bar that is covering the flint wheel if it’s getting in the way. Make sure the wheel is turning the same direction it would if you were lighting it normally to make sure you don’t cause damage to the lighter. Pick up to place the lighter back in the original position and repeat this action until you see sparks. At this point the lighter should be ready to use again.

How To Hold The Wet Lighter Example

As you can see in the example image above I have the lighter upside down with the flame hole pointing away from me and I am pushing the lighter away from me. This not only protects the ligher from additional damage, it keep the sparks pointed away from me. For a full demonstration of how to dry off a wet lighter checkout our video below. Watch as we drop a ligher into a bowl of water and get it working again.

How To Quickly Dry Out a Wet Lighter Video

What We Did

We put together this quick video to show you how simple it is to get a soaking wet lighter working again. In the video we take a working lighter and drop in into a bucket of water for about 20 seconds or so just to make sure it’s completely soaked. We shook out as much water as we could and rolled the wheel against a rock until we saw a spark. It took about a minute or more to get it going but we were able to light it up pretty much right out of the bucket of water. I suggest you give your lighter longer to dry before you attempt this just because we used a ton of flint due to all the moisture still present.

Quickly Dry Out a Wet Lighter

An alternative method I have used to dry out a wet lighter in the past is to press the flint wheel to my lips and blow as hard as I can several hundred times into the top of the lighter. As you saw in the video, I used this method along with using the rock to help speed up the drying process. The goal of blowing into the top is to send enough air into the the top of the lighter that if forces as much water out as possible. You should have better luck seeing a spark after several tries as long as you are not adding more moisture by spitting into the lighter as you attempt this. This method alone will take some time and has made me lightheaded in the past from blowing all that air out for a long period of time.

In emergency situations only: If you can’t find a hard surface you can try to rub the lighter on your denim jeans but this can be dangerous. If you are still wearing them be careful because you can burn yourself or even catch yourself on fire. I would only use this method as a last resort most immortality because of the danger but you will most likely damage your jeans in the process.

Get a Waterproof Lighter

Out of the two methods above finding a hard surface to use the push my lighter across was the fastest method. Only had to push it a few time before I was able to get a spark and was truly effective. Unfortunately, this did cause some damage to my lighter and soon after the flint ran out far before the lighter ran out of gas. I purchased a new BIC lighter but went hunting for a solution that would prevent this situation from happening again.

Started searching for a waterproof lighter and after a few hours of research I found one on Amazon that I am really happy with. If you are interested it’s called the UST Floating Lighter that pretty much what it doe’s, floats. Nothing really special about it at all, just a basic butane refillable lighter with a lid that locks in place to keep it water tight and it floats in water.

Full Disclosure

I am not affiliated with UST but I will get a small kickback from Amazon if you click my link to buy a UST Floating Lighter but this article is intended to be informational not to sell you a lighter. There are several other good brands on the market that I know of but this is the one I personally use. If you are looking for the same solution I was make sure you find something that works best for you.

Additionally, try reading this article regarding stump grinding, a method used to remove tree stumps from the ground using a specialized machine called a stump grinder.

We hope you like this quick how to video and we plan on putting a tone more together over the next few months. Knowing how to get a wet lighter working again is a basic camping skill that everyone should know how to do. I could make the difference in a fun night by the camp fire and can even save your life. If you found this article useful please share with your family and friends.