However, starting a fire with basic flint or rubbing sticks together is a long and difficult process.

But things got a lot easier in the fifth century, when the Chinese invented sulphur matches.

But it wasn't till the mid 19th century that safety matches were born.

Nowadays, to start a fire, you just need to rob a match head against a striking strip on.

There you go, you're in business.

But it took another 1400 years after the Chinese invention.

For the modern safety match to appear today, much is a cheap and easy to make a line aboard.

Paper roll feeds into a machine, passing under a hot iron to reduce the moisture level to around 5% on.

In a box making machine like this one can make 55,000 Linus per hour through high speed die cutting, folding, gluing on forming the speed of the process depends on the inner boxes size on the papers.

Density machine throws out, formed in the boxes onto a conveyor belt at a rate of 1000 liners per minute conveyor, then drops the formed liners into storage bins on automatic sorting machine files boxes in single rose and arranges them up right on conveyors, feeding the filling machine.

In the meantime, precut inserts a fed to the outer box, making machine high speed.

Decreasing and cutting tools automatically fold the inserts.

As the folded liners run through the rollers, the machine forms and glues the box skillets.

Each insert has to striking strips in an industrial mixer.

Gelatin capsules are poured over potassium chloride.

Gelatin serves as a binder for the match head compound.

Hot water is added to dissolve the gelatin, which combines with the potassium powder.

Silicon Granules are then added to the mix.

They act as a combustion controlling agent.

Booth sides of the mixer, a rinsed with water as the compound mixture reduces after 40 minutes.

When the mixture is liquid, red coloring is added, as well as other compounds that make the match had burned more vigorously.

The way splint production line.

A batch of splintered aspen wood is inspected and impregnated with ammonium phosphate to prevent afterglow.

Splints run over perforated place to shake off any residue or waste.

Then they go through a machine, which automatically discounts and the undersized or broken splints.

Splints now reach the match dipping line, where the perforated steel much bar runs down an endless chain.

The automatic feeder inserts over two million splints per hour into the sockets of the match.

Bar splints gets a paraffin coating while a mixer prevents.

The match had compound from solidifying that loaded much.

Barlow is the splints and dips their heads in.

After five seconds of the match bar moves back up on the head.

Compound mixture flows down into the mixing plan to be renewed before another section of the match bomb moves in.

After dipping splints, keep rolling down the match bar chain for drying.

Chain leaps up and down for an hour, leaving the match head compound time to dry thoroughly.

Once the heads are drying, the Finnish much is ready for packaging.

First, the filling machine sends the outer and inner matchbox liners to parallel conveyors on a high speed line.

The machine can process 500 boxes per minute finished.

Much is finally come off.

The much bar on the filling machine places them into the liner.

At this point, the machine processes 200 matches per second.

Filling machine pushes Thean a Lina into the outer box machine is calibrated to fill each box with a set amount of matches on reject the extra ones.

Finished filled boxes come out onto the packaging.

Conveyor matches can be made in a variety of sizes, large or small, and it's amazing to think that man is harnessed one of nature's most powerful elements in a tiny box.

Good job for some bright spark.