InstaFire is a camping and overland brand founded in Riverdale, Utah,.
InstaFire traces its formula to a mountain man lighting a rock on fire. Konel Banner saw it at a wilderness rendezvous on the Wasatch Front in 2007, the company's About page says, and he and his business partner, Frank Weston, spent the next nine months working out a fire starter from the same kind of rock.
The question behind it was older. In June 1976 the Teton Dam in Idaho collapsed, and Banner's sister and her family were missing for nearly a week. They made it out. Banner kept asking himself how an ordinary person in that spot would stay warm and cook a meal.
The first product was close to the rock itself. According to the Standard-Examiner, InstaFire started out of Riverdale with a patented blend of volcanic rock and wood chips, plus wax, sold in five gallon buckets. A pouch for campers and hikers came later. Then came a burnable pouch for lighting charcoal, which Banner liked because it skips the lighter fluid.
In February 2016 the founders sold 30 percent of the company to two investors on Shark Tank for $300,000, the paper reported. Banner said retailers had already ordered many times their usual amounts ahead of the broadcast, and that they told him the show brings as much exposure as a Super Bowl ad. Weston spent that week in New Jersey learning a new packing machine meant to triple the company's shipping capacity.
The granules catch from a match in about a second and burn at over 900 degrees, the FAQ says, with a 6 to 10 inch flame for 5 to 7 minutes. They will float and keep burning on water. Once lit they hold up in 30 mile per hour wind, and the FAQ is careful to add that you have to shield them from the wind while lighting, which is also true of whoever is holding the match.
The formula is built not to light from an ordinary spark, which the company presents as a safety feature, so plan on a sustained flame from a match or a lighter. The pouches are labeled made in USA, and the company now lists its address in Salt Lake City. The About page says it is an approved fire starter of the Boy Scouts of America.
The catalog now includes biomass stoves and plasma lighters. The Ember oven bakes outdoors on twigs and leaves, or indoors on the company's canned fuel. Banner's original question was how to cook a meal when everything else is washed away, and the answer now includes pizza.
The InstaFire FAQ says its starter boils two cups of water in 15 minutes or less, and the pine smell comes from wood pellets in the mix.
