Starting a Fire in a Difficult Place
Strike anywhere match to a handful of low grown, barkless, spruce twigs; the absolute thinnest ones. Works in all temps and a sure fire as long as it hasn’t rained.
I have never bothered with feather sticks; that is not to say they don't work well for other people. Whatever will work well, however, whenever needed is shaven dry pine or spruce. In wet conditions, find dead standing pine or spruce and shave a bunch of slivers to use as kindling, then use the rest of the log as fuel.
While cooking bone broth in an oven, I have grease spills from the lip that boil over and burn. Rather than wiping it with a rag or throwing it out, I may wipe it with a cotton ball or small cotton rag used later to start a fire; I would not do this with feedlot animal tallows.
A rag, cotton ball, dry cattail, wasp nest, or any other fine vegetable matter material will light and hold a hot flame longer when it is saturated with oil; this also makes use of oil that you would otherwise discard.
Birch bark. Lay a few slivers under your tightly crunched and bundled dry spruce twigs in cold, wintery conditions. The bark will light and hold a flame until the spruce kindling takes.
The pitch stick. A simple pitch glue recipe on the internet (1 part hot pitch glue with a near equal amount of crushed carbon brick and some beeswax mixed) will make a waterproof fire starter.
Simply wrap the glue, warm, around a hardy length of clean cotton cord and tie a loop at one end to dangle. The pitch stick may shatter if it's cold or not malleable enough and hits something while dangling.
A man was selling a derivation of this item with a match buried along with the other end of the inner cord; the head of the match is just beneath the pitch tip, so the covering could be easily peeled off and the match struck to make a standalone fire starter; this is not waterproof.
The tip can be lit and held under a small pile of spruce twigs in place of using petrol in your lighter. A 3-inch stick can light as many as 15 fires or so. Even in a cloud of fog or if the spruce twigs are damp, this quick pitch stick will reach kindles' dry core and start your fire without burdening you too much with matches or eating your lighter petrol.
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Yet another way to start a fire, particularly in winter, is to "prime" a fire by putting a clump of pitch right on top of your regular kindling sticks. Put your lit match or lit pitch stick under the clump, which is sitting on a pile of relatively thick and hastily acquired kindle sticks, so the fire rises through the kindle sticks to the pitch clump. The clump will melt the pitch and ignite, drip, spread, and fuel the fire; this method has saved me when I'm unwilling to look for fine kindling, make fine kindling, or my hands are too cold to use the magnesium stick. The pitch will hold the flame so the worst kindling will eventually take. For said reasons, I often keep a small bag stocked with spruce or pine pitch clumps.
Collect clumps of the pitch from trees when a good portion becomes available. If storing your stash in a pouch, throw some ash into the pouch to prevent the clumps of pitch from sticking to the pouch or your hands.
Yet another fire starter to consider is the pitch nest method. Simply take some fresh, still soft pitch or sap from an appropriate tree (pine, spruce, etc.) and mix, by hand, with wasp or hornet nest paper, though most dry tinder will do (I think), in a 50/50 ratio. Light the ball, which needn't be larger than the tip of your thumb, and place it under your Kindle. The ball will maintain a fire until the kindle is lit.
When the branches are wet from fresh rain, it is hard to start a fire with the pitch stick alone shown above. So, collect large amounts of fresh, dry, sticky-state pitch sap and make a regular fire nest of spruce twigs. Put a large amount of the messy sap on a twig and put the stick at the bottom of the nest, then light it with a black sap fire starter.
Dry grass is a staple starter in good weather, but when the environment is wet or cold, I reach for birch bark and char cloth. Throw a pinch in the bark, let it light, and throw a handful of ready spruce twigs slowly on top.
Yet another is to pull a handful of spruce sticks from the often dry base of the tree; take a healthy pinch of char cloth, hit it with a spark, fold the char clump into the stick, and blow until the bundle fires. Even when the grass is pretty damp, the char pinch will ignite the wet grass—but use the sticks for a sure start.
