At the end of verse 11 Nephi notes that he had two strike rocks together to make fire. Verse 12 serves as the explanation as to why he did this (it begins with the explicative "for..."). We may speculate somewhat, therefore, on the preferred nature of traveling at the time. It is not uncommon to wrap and carry coals from the previous nights fire to the next campground, and nurse them back to flame. This would probably have been the means of transporting the fire from one place to the other. In this case, however, the long years without fire surely made that method impossible. As Nephi had no coals with which to make fire, he had to return to the more difficult method of starting a fire from sparks. This method of beginning the new fire likely made it into mention in his record precisely because it was out of the ordinary.