We all know Survivor is very strict when it comes to life at camp for the players and what resources they're given. In the new era, host Jeff Probst has gone so far as to take flint from the losing tribe so they don't have a way to make fire back at camp, but there were plenty of old-school tribes that existed without flint first.
And in many cases, we've seen players use their resources wisely and make fire by utilizing their glasses and magnifying the sun or creating friction by rubbing bamboo together. But apparently, there's another way fire was previously created on the show that we haven't been told about. And honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if the show probably never wanted fans to find out about it.
In a recent Cameo that was posted on Instagram, Boston Rob Mariano was asked to share a funny story from one of his many days on Survivor and he decided to pull an anecdote from his time on Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains that proves both why he's a master Survivor strategist and why he was put on the Villains tribe.
"This is a story I haven't told a lot, but on Heroes and Villains, Tyson and I were both out there," Boston Rob said. "It was Day 3. We couldn't get a fire going. It was raining, and like everything was wet."
"We're going to the challenge, and the Survivor people have a safety boat on the side of the water. In case anyone drowns, they send someone out to save their life. Anyway, I noticed there was an engine on the back of the boat. And, I told Tyson, 'I'll be lookout. You go rip a piece of cloth off your shirt and go stick it the gasoline. We're going to make a fire. So, he does, comes back, and all of a sudden, we hit the flint and machete, and one spark, and a huge fireball in the jungle."
In the end, Boston Rob and Tyson didn't get away with it.
"We had to put the fire out, and we were heavily reprimanded," he said.
While Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains isn't considered one of the seasons with the worst weather conditions, don't forget that it was filmed in Samoa right after Survivor: Samoa where it rained so hard for so long that no one could strategize because they were all huddled in the shelter together, unable to have private conversations.
So, when Rob says it was only thre days into season 20 and it had been raining uncontrollably, you can imagine just how desperate he was to get a fire going back at camp. And there was no better accomplice for him to pick than Tyson, who has a reputation for having rascal-like tendencies.
The fact that they were able to pull one over on the entire production staff and sneak away with a cloth of gasoline after a challenge is both crazy and hilarious, affirming what we already know: they are incredible strategists who deserve their titles as Sole Survivors.
I'm sure I'm not the only fan out there who would love to see the footage from this moment and everyone's subsequent reaction to the immediate blaze of fire. And obviously I'd be very interested to learn what the producers actually said to Rob and Tyson when they were "heavily reprimanded."
Now I can't help but wonder what other crazy behind-the-scenes stories are out there that haven't been shared with us yet?
More from Surviving Tribal: