The History of Fire Pistons

Fire pistons only made it to the Western world long after they had become commonplace in the East. The principle behind fire pistons is rooted in concepts that were still considered modern science as late as the 1850s.
Fire pistons are devices used for starting fires. Simple tubes that are sealed at one end and open on the other, fire pistons work because of combustion. The plunger (or piston) of the fire piston is pushed rapidly down the tube, raising the temperature of the air inside to temperatures that are hot enough to ignite. (Temperatures can reach 500 degrees Fahrenheit.)

Place of Origin

The fire piston was first discovered in Southeast Asia and the Philippines, where it was thought to have been developed. Variations of the fire piston have also been found in use among the native cultures in Borneo, Sumatra, Madagascar, and India, as well as in the countries of Indochina (peninsular Malaysia, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam). It is thought that the use of fire pistons in these areas date back well before written history.
The earliest fire pistons were made from durable yet easy-to-find materials such as animal bones or horns, with animal fat used to make the seal of the compression tube.

Introduction into the Western World

There are two conflicting stories of the introduction of the fire piston to the Western world. One states that it was invented in Rome in 1745, by Abbe Augustin Ruffo. The only mention of this invention was in an 1876 article published in "The New York Times."
The other theory, older and more generally accepted, is that the Western fire piston evolved separately, but not entirely independently, from its Eastern counterpart. Western scientists, intrigued by the concept of the blow gun, developed the fire piston after experiments with blow guns.
Either way, the fire piston was patented the same year (1807) in both England and in France.

Inspiration

Many of the Eastern cultures that were discovered using the fire piston with regularity were also known to use blow guns; speculation is that one evolved from use of the other.
Blow guns and fire pistons are based loosely on the same principles of compression. In a blow gun, air is passed through a long tube to shoot a powerful dart, while in a fire piston the compressed air passed through a similar tube is used to ignite tinder.
It was this similarity that was thought to have given birth to the fire piston in both Eastern and Western cultures.

Uses

The fire piston was common in households for many years, both before and after the invention of the match. Even after the invention of matches, fire pistons continued to be popular because of their durability (later fire pistons were made out of materials including brass) and their ability to be reused. As an added bonus, fire pistons that got wet could simply be dried out and they would still work. This made them ideal for working outdoors in all weather.
Fire pistons also retained their usefulness because they work with a variety of different materials. Anything that has a low combustion temperature can be used for tinder.

The Next Generation

The compression principles that are seen at work in the fire piston were the inspiration for another world-changing invention: Dr. Rudolph Diesel's diesel engine.
Armed with the knowledge that most steam engines waste the majority of their energy, Diesel saw in the compression chambers of inventions such as the fire piston and the blow gun the idea for a new way to harness the energy that was created when a piston was passed through a chamber. In many way, the chamber of a diesel engine is a fire piston. The temperature of the piston and the chamber ignites the fuel, much like a fire piston ignites tinder.