The fact is if you have fuel for a fire, you have tinder and kindling. It just takes knowledge, experience and confidence to find the tinder and kindling.

Traditionally tinder was carried to save time and energy, as it still is. But, kindling is so easily bought nowadays that it has become the norm to carry it and use for every fire one starts.

It seems that the art of finding and preparing tinder is a dying one. And, there seems to be a misnomer on the internet that gives the impression that tinder should be carried because it can’t be found or very difficult to find.

The tinder I personally don’t like are those that are manufactured specifically for the propose. I don’t like spending money to burn even if it is a couple of £/$. Many of them have a short shelf life and often fail to work. I much prefer to collect natural tinder’s on my travels.

I light my fires using a spark so cotton wool is perfect for times when I just want a fire quickly. If it is a real emergency, the weather is crap and I don’t have time to mess around then the match case and a strip of inner tube comes out.

Addendum to my addendum:
Just watched Survivorman, Sierra Nevada Mountains. He just used his L.E.D. headtorch to create a fire. Short circuited the torch to ignite the cotton wool from his first aid kit. Good idea as far as it goes, but he destroyed the torch to do it (burnt up in fire).

Disposable lighter $1.
Head torch $10 minimum.
Hummm, perhaps not such a good idea.

Fire lighting using a torch has been taught in military survival courses for years. Do you need a torch to survive? No you don’t. Fire is a lot more important than a torch in most situations.

A $10+ torch is cheep compared to life.

Put a 4 inch piece of nichrome wire in your PSK (or right inside the torch). Use it for short circuiting. And any battery will easily survive your barbaric fire making procedure.

I myself have empty snus cans filled with cotton balls and Vaseline®.

The main difference between tinders is burn time and pure heat.

PJ cotton balls catch pretty easily and burn for a while, more important here in Oklahoma due to the non stop wind which will disperse the heat very quickly.

I like Bic® lighters and PJCBs for a couple reasons.

1. Reliable
2. Cheap

I've used mag bars, they're okay, but they require time and work for a short duration burn, they're great for longevity but I'd rather have a separate mag bar and fire steel.

White gas works, but now we're talking extremely easy to vaporize not to mention a possible rash if it spills.

Alcohol can be used in the same capacity and has the added bonus of sterilization... and if you splurge on drinkable stuff a possible morale boost.

So many kinds of tinder, I like stuff I can do easily with one hand and low light and tired.

extra gas is dangerous, and you could spill it on yourself, and it likes to vaporize.

alcohol vaporizes easily too much is a waste and again an accidental spill could mean a burn.

I could go on for a bit, but I think we all get the idea, several sources to fit the need.

now there is a statement we should all think about"here in Oklahoma"..i'll bet that among ten of us there are about nine separate fire starting,and keeping going needs.what i need is a good hot start in a wet pine woods.once a fire is going i'll have heaps of Red and White pine along with Black Spruce and Birch.so if i can get something going i'm good..i seldom even need to split wood to get something that will burn as the sticks and branches are filled with pitch..i assume some places will have hardwoods or lots of softwood like Aspen that will be hard to start and keep going..i've camped in Aspen glades and thats the worse wood to try and make a fire with unless its bone dry.
what if you are someplace where there is little of no wood!!.
to high,to dry or even too wet,i'm thinking swamps here.so maybe a fire kit for the piney woods is a world away from a hardwood forest out East..any ideas??

The possibility of there being no wood is why I have gone to carrying some sort of fuel and stove with me - usually a gas cartridge stove, but often an alcohol unit, or, if it is going to be fairly cold, a liquid fuel stove. You don't have to worry about whether there may be fuel available, or if it can burn. Your meal is ready sooner, and your campsite is cleaner.

Ditto.

i was thinking,survival, not camping.so you are down to just the kit having used up or lost everything else and the kit better have the gear for making a fire in your local environment.a Bic and a candle stub might be fine for dry and cool hill country out west but in the boreal forests you might want a can of something to light wet,mossy wood and someone off the Appalachian Trail might put a paper match to a pile of dry leaves and get a bonfire in a few minutes while the guy in a swamp is wading around looking for dry ground.so it's kit arranged to your needs and not something off the shelf.

Canoedogs I see what you are saying but it’s not the apparatuses used to lighting a fire that is important. It is more about gaining the knowledge of building a fire in different environments, using different materials. I know some woods are a real pig to start a fire with but also know that if I prepare the fire correctly I can still use that wood.

I have used a steel and cotton wool; matches and inner tube from the jungle to the arctic. Candles are great in all environments too, you just have to realise the candle needs to be sheltered from the wind. If you protect your chosen fire lighting method and tinder from moisture most will light a fire in any circumstance.