The advantages of using a fire tube are: you only need a couple pinches of dry grass, a pea size coal, no smoke in the face and you won't burn your fingers. Cows parsnip grows everywhere here in the north. The dry hollow stalks are up to an inch in diameter. I packed in a little grass, dropped in a pea size piece of glowing ember and another pinch of grass on top. Then, I blew on the opposite end.
The dry hollow stalk concentrates the heat of the small coal and helps ignite the flame. Other hollow stalks or rolled up bark could be substituted.
"Thinking outside the box."
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Mike Richardson resides in Anchorage, Alaska.