The 8 Best Survival Candles

Editor's Notes

June 02, 2020:

When preparing for a camping trip or just prepping your house for blackouts, a bright flashlight might seem like the obvious go-to, but in reality, batteries go bad, people forget to recharge things, and flashlights can get pretty heavy. A survival candle won't put out nearly as much light as the typical flashlight, but those specially designed for survival can last a long time while requiring just a match to start. To be thoroughly prepared for emergencies, it would be smart to have both a flashlight and survival candles on hand to use depending on how well you need to see and for how long.

For this update we removed the Zombie Tinder for being more gimmicky than useful, especially compared to some of the other metal-tin style candles on our list. We replaced it with the Repel Citronella as great option for a survival in the wilderness situation. Mosquito populations are growing in most areas, and this candle will give you pretty effective bug control. It's a little larger than our top pick Coghlan's 36-Hour, but still won't take up too much precious backpack space.

The Coghlan's 36-Hour remains in the top spot for providing an excellent amount of light in relation to its compact size. In a survival situation you could actually use it to boil a small amount of water if you have some kind of portable stovetop. Plus it's cheap enough, you could keep a bunch of these in your home for power outages.

We also included in this revision the Stonebriar 200 Pack of tea lights for home power outages. They last a surprising 6 hours, nearly double the typical tea light. They can be a practical solution because you can cover a lot of the house with out worrying anything tipping over like with a large candle.