Canadian author and poet Margaret Atwood, best known for The Handmaid’s Tale and a career that spans more than 50 other works, is famous for a lot of things.
Surprisingly, DIY fire starters are one of them.
As part of her "eccentric self-isolationist" tips during the COVID-19 lockdown, Atwood included the sustainable suggestion of turning dryer lint into homemade fire starters. The methodology is simple: Pack lint into cardboard egg cartons, add melted candle wax, and voilà.
The idea itself isn’t exactly new, but dryer lint has a way of sparking curiosity (and dryer fires). A recent New York Times article revisited the trend, weighing how well it burns against questions of safety, cost, and convenience. Which brings us to the real question: Should dryer lint actually be used as a fire starter?
According to the U.S. Fire Administration, an estimated more than 2,900 home fires are caused by clothes dryers each year, which makes understanding dryer lint — and why it’s so flammable — more important than you might think.
Dryer lint is the fuzzy buildup left behind after a load of laundry dries. It’s made up of tiny fibers, threads, hair, dust, and even dead skin that sheds from clothing during the wash and dry cycle.
Lint forms primarily because of three things:
The result is a soft, lightweight material that collects in the lint trap, but also builds up in dryer vents if they aren’t cleaned regularly. And that buildup is where the danger comes in.
According to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), roughly one-third of house fires involving washers or dryers are caused by a failure to clean them, with lint, dust, and fibers responsible for about 27% of those fires.
The same properties that make lint a fire hazard are also what make people curious about using it as a fire starter.
Dryer lint is primarily composed of textile fibers from clothing. It’s lightweight, porous, and highly combustible. It also absorbs moisture easily, which can affect how well — and how long — it burns.
When exposed to a spark or flame, dryer lint catches fire almost immediately and produces a fast burst of heat. That makes it effective as tinder, though it tends to burn up quickly unless combined with another fuel source. Because lint usually has low moisture content straight from the dryer, it’s readily available and reliable under the right conditions, quick to ignite, but not necessarily sustainable or consistent long-term.
There are a few important trade-offs to keep in mind if you’re thinking about using dryer lint as a fire starter.
These considerations are important not just for whether to use, but also for where.
If you do use dryer lint, it’s most effective when turned into small, contained fire starters using simple household items:
These methods are for outdoor use, such as with camping, grills, or emergencies.
Using dryer lint as a fire starter indoors is not recommended.
Burning lint inside a fireplace or wood stove can release toxic fumes from synthetic fibers and leftover laundry chemicals, which is especially dangerous in enclosed spaces. Lint can also burn inconsistently, sometimes melting instead of igniting, and its lightweight nature makes it prone to floating embers that could start an unintended fire outside your wood burning apparatus.
For indoor fires, it’s better to stick with safer, more predictable options:
These alternatives are safe for fireplaces and wood stoves, providing a reliable, clean, and long-burning flame. For more information on preventing household fires, the NFPA and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission offer reliable guidance.
To borrow Atwood’s quarantine-time phrasing — originally echoing a group of female bush pilots who introduced her to the DIY tool — when you tailor your firestarter to its surroundings, it becomes the “Best damn firestarter you ever saw.”