First off, homemade napalm is in no way illegal, nor does it explode. You’ve watched too many Vietnam movies. What it does do is burn. Forever. More on campfires to come.
Put a couple of fingers of unleaded in a pickle (wide mouthed) jar, stuff waste Styrofoam in it. You can jam the contents of a 40" TV packaging in a quart jar.
That’s it, that easy. Keep cramming the foam in until you get a taffy consistency. Too much and it’s too hard to dig out with a stick. Too little and it slips off your stick.
I keep a jar at my campsite and one in the house for starting our little fire pit. A golf ball chunk will start soaking wet kindling.
PRO TIP: Spread the goo on a cookie pan, 1.4" thick, let it dry in the summer sun, cut into little pieces with scissors, put it in a little plastic box (that you had saved already, right?). Now you can pack it out with no mess, no smell!
Never goes bad, as far as I know, can’t be too dry.
Styrofoam also releases toxic fumes when it burns. So as a firestarter, it’s great in an emergency. For a campfire, don’t sit too close or cook your marshmallows on it.
You can offset some of the health risks by using leaded gasoline instead. It’s a lot better for your valve seats. You can still get leaded gasoline at many GA airfields.
Fair point! But you have to be standing right over the fire, huffing the fumes, to catch any smell. Get it rolling and step away.
Got me thinking, the dried version is not nearly as smelly. Harder to produce though.
Oh yeah, it’s the generally safe at a short distance, but people do stupid shit all the time, like light fires in enclosed spaces, or cook over a tire fire.