>>147253I sacrifice a little of the wood I've gathered to make a platform, or at least something to raise my tinder off the ground.
If I can split off some wide pieces, usually bark, I use these as a roof above the beginnings of my fire.
I gather at least double the amount of wood I normally would. A wet fire needs to be hotter to keep burning.
During prep of the fire site, keep the tinder dry. This cannot EVER be emphasized enough. If you can, cover the small stuff (smaller than kindling, too large to light right off so needs the tinder) so it's at least mostly dry, or drips off.
You'll also need to split your kindling a lot thinner -- or at least have a lot more small kindling -- so it will catch more easily and you can add pieces more frequently.
So ...
>small platform with a cave for the tinder to be easily accessible.>bit of a roof of bark or something to keep the middle dry>Add a bit of small stuff to catch quickly>Bring out tinder, add to small stuff bundle just long enough to ignite the tinder, then add it to the fire>Add kindling and fuel wood to keep it burningBasically, your goal is to start the fire, and get it to be large and hot enough quickly, to dry out more wood put on top.
