>>1124163I was going out for a day or a weekend like 50-60 times a year for almost whole high school. Sleeping under a tarp by the fire, in hunter's cabins at winter (yeah, all year round). We mostly used matches in waterproof containers or Bic lighters. Never lighting fluid or gasoline as aid, mostly birch bark as true survivalists.
Bic lighters will fail you first. Will your hands be wet or just cold it usually won't work. Also after few days in your pockets in damp forest they stopped working from moisture. You turned the wheel harder and harder untill the magnesium stone fell of, this happened daily.
We used regular matches in waterproof containers because storm matches were too expensive. Usually in medicine bottle or photo film round box. We were putting strikers cut of from the box. Sometimes they too were unreliable, especially after few months in the box or when everything was wet. We used to carry two or more fire sources to never have to spend night without a fire. Sometimes you had to start a fire few times because sticks were all wet. We didn't know about fine spliting or pine knots at the time. So, yeah sometimes it was a struggle. Our tea, boiling drinking water, heating food was dependant on fires, same as sleeping whole night through a night. We taked turns in colder nights so we had fire running all night long, so other can sleep.
We ended using either Zippo gasoline lighters or ferro rods because most reliable and cool way to light a fire. Not only it was cheap and low maintenance, trustworthy and we had a feeling we're true outdoorsmen.
I hope this answer your question. Regular fire sources are convenient in regular circumstances.
