The products

Fire starter

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What it is Which the archetype does not describe The container has two jobs So a jar with a lined lid PP where it might meet heat Petroleum jelly is the easy case Gelled alcohol is not And it evaporates through a poor seal Keep it away from the food And do not label it cleverly References

A soaked or gelled flammable, in a jar. Neither aqueous nor cold.

What it is

Cotton soaked in petroleum jelly, a wax-impregnated tinder, a gelled alcohol, or shavings and dust kept dry. A flammable preparation in a small sealed container.

Which the archetype does not describe

store-liquid-decant says thin, aqueous, cold and poured. A gelled flammable is none of those, and this leaf shares a group with five products that are.

The container has two jobs

Keep the moisture out so the tinder lights, and keep the contents in so the pack does not smell of fuel. Those are both closure jobs.

So a jar with a lined lid

218 jars on this shelf, 110 of them PET single wall and 31 PP single wall, with 26 dome lids and 19 lug and twist to close them. A wide mouth so a cold hand can get the tinder out.

PP where it might meet heat

76 PP containers. A fire starter lives near a fire, and the one time a container gets put down somewhere warm is the time it matters.

Petroleum jelly is the easy case

Not volatile, not thin, and it does not attack much. A plain jar with a lined lid is genuinely sufficient.

Gelled alcohol is not

A volatile flammable with a flashpoint, which puts it in the same rules as the fuel decant. The shop consumables property sets out the classifications and the container size limits by material.

And it evaporates through a poor seal

An alcohol gel left in a pack for a season is a jar of thickened residue. The liner decides, and 11 liners and sealing discs is the relevant line item.

Keep it away from the food

Which is a stowage point with a packaging answer: a sealed container inside a sealed bag, in a different pocket. Petroleum smell transfers to food through less than people expect.

And do not label it cleverly

A jar of flammable gel in a pack shared with other people needs to say what it is in plain words. This is the one item in the kit where somebody else might open it by mistake.

References

The archetype behind this shelf is store-liquid-decant: 15 to 120 mL, narrow mouth, flip top or disc top or lotion pump or fine mist, PET and HDPE, cold fill, thin, aqueous, poured, with "travel decant, leakproof under pressure change is the whole requirement" as its stated reason. All seven leaves sit on it, including fuel decant and fire starter, which are neither aqueous nor cold.

The Davis Pack Supply catalog, measured 18 October 2026. The camping and backpacking shelf is 979 rows: 453 containers and 526 closures. 15 mL to 500 mL with a median of 177; 8 containers at 15 mL or under, 27 at 30 or under, 86 at 60 or under, 189 at 120 or under, 394 at a pint or under. 201 PET, 126 HDPE, 76 PP, 50 glass. 221 bottles, 218 jars, 12 tubs and pails, 1 jug, 1 tube. 134 white, 114 clear, 66 natural, 52 amber. Closures: 369 continuous thread, 26 dome lids, 26 spouted, 19 flip top, 19 lug and twist, 18 child resistant, 11 liners and sealing discs, 9 phenolic, 7 spice caps, 7 buttress, 6 round tubs, and no disc tops, lotion pumps or fine mist sprayers.

Written from 40 CFR 152.500 and from the catalog as it stood on 18 October 2026. No log-reduction performance figures appear anywhere in this property, because the commonly cited numbers come from an EPA guide standard rather than a codified rule. Forest and park food storage orders are issued locally and are not summarized. Nothing here is a fuel bottle or a bear-resistant container.