Had a little campfire last night for bonfire night.
It'd been raining pretty bad all day, and I was really struggling to set a fire with my firestarter, any suggestions on how to easily make a fire in very wet conditions.
(Once I had it going it was fine, just very difficult, took me around 40 minutes in the pitch black)
>>625544
Birch bark
>>625544
>very wet conditions.
Find dry kindling. Cedars, spruce, and young pines all have sources of dry kindling. Worst case scenario cedar has waterproof bark. If the cedars are soaked through then start looking for deadfall. This is dead branches that are still in the air, either attached to the tree or otherwise suspended and not in direct contact with the ground.
>>625553
Deadfall the size of your thumb or slightly larger should be dry on the inside and easy to access without a gigantic knife/axe/hatchet. Same for the cedar if it's available. Also any kind of wax covered fire starter (cardboard egg crate filled with sawdust soaked in parafin, etc) would be helpful here.
>>625553
Thankyou
Carve your starter wood until you get to where its dry
>>625544
If you're around pine, green moss usually dries out quick after a rain, and you can shove a handful of it in your pocket off any random tree if you see rain coming. Saturate that in some pine sap, and a blob the size of a quarter will burn (even wet) for about fifteen minutes. I also carry a small medicine bottle with dryer lint saturated with paraffin, in case nothing natural is available.
>>625564
You can also take petroleum jelly, heat it up in a pan and then soak it up with cotton balls and store them in a pill bottle or film canister if anyone even gets those anymore.
>>626019
I will add to this, don't saturate the cotton balls too too much with vaseline. They tend to be harder to light when fully saturated.
>>625544
easiest thing is bring a can of gasoline
or if you want a safer option paraffin in form of candle but that's more work and less sure