How Good Can Waterproof Matches Actually Be?

The unglamorous £10 box that outperforms a lighter in the exact moments you need it most.

Waterproof matches sound like a gimmick until you're standing in driving rain trying to get a fire going — at which point the "just carry a lighter" advice falls apart fast.

The performance is real

• Fully submersible and re-lightable — proper stormproof matches, like UCO's, will relight after being completely dunked in water, not just resist a light drizzle.

• A genuine flame, not a spark — most stormproof matches burn for 15–20 seconds, long enough to get kindling going even in wind that would snuff out a standard match instantly.

• Windproof by design — some, like Coghlan's storm matches, are built specifically so wind can't extinguish them once lit, a real point of failure for ordinary matches and even some lighters.

• Larger "flare" versions exist — Zippo's Typhoon matches burn for around 25 seconds with a flare-like head, followed by another 30 seconds of stick burn, for genuinely extreme conditions.

Why they beat a lighter

A lighter depends on butane igniting correctly, which gets far less reliable when it's cold, wet, or windy — exactly the conditions you're most likely to need fire in. A stormproof match:

• Works regardless of temperature or altitude, unlike butane lighters

• Doesn't fail from a single dunk in a river crossing or a wet pocket

• Needs no maintenance — no flint to wear down, no fuel to run out unexpectedly

The trade-off is that the thick waterproof coating makes them a little harder to strike — expect to strike two or three times rather than one.

The payoff

A box of 25 stormproof matches runs around £9–£10 in the UK, with a waterproof carry case often sold separately or bundled in slightly pricier kits. That's a genuinely small outlay for something that solves a real failure point in camping, emergency kits, and DofE-style outdoor prep.

Bottom line

This is about as unglamorous as "clever gadget" content gets, but it earns its place: a cheap, low-tech product that reliably does something a more expensive, more complicated device (a lighter) can fail at exactly when it matters.