Awesome, that gives me more confidence with starting a fire by using my current kit (updated from my pics above).

No matter what method used to start the fire, the trick is to have plenty of wood already gathered to get it going and often times nurse it along until it's burning hot. Getting a fire going in wet conditions takes some doing at the best. Finding dry wood to get it going is the ticket.

No Matter even if a Forest Fire,Short of a Firestorm,Wet Clothes take a BIT more than a Couple a'Minutes to dry,Unless...You happen to be Ken,Of Ken/Barbie Fame!

+1 on the road flare over and above your usual fire starting equipment.

Very true. I had a helluva time getting that thru my brother's thick head, though. We went camping last weekend, and due to p!ss poor planning (mostly on his part) we didn't get to camp until a half hour before sundown. That annoyed me since I like to take my time with fire prep, batonning wood down til I have a pretty big pile of kindling. Normally I sort the wood into three piles- kindling, small fuel and large fuel. To me kindling is wood between the size of a pencil and the size of your thumb. Small fuel is wood split down to the dry center and no larger than your wrist. Large fuel is anything that will burn but larger than that, maybe split once. At any rate, I didn't have time to split a ton of wood, but I had enough to get the fire going. I built an platform for an upside down fire and placed a cotton ball under the kindling. The wood was simply not as dry as I'd have liked so things were taking a while to get really going. But my brother sees flame and starts heaping wood on it. I try to explain that fire needs air as well as fuel but he's convinced it will be fine. Long story short, I ended up having to "rescue" the fire with a little bundle of fatwood I'd brought along to try out but forgotten to use (until that point). I think he learned a lot about fire that evening. Next time he'll know enough to let the fire reach that critical mass before adding large fuel.

BTW, if any of you live in areas of prolonged drought, for a nominal fee I will come to your area and set up my camp- I guarantee the rains will began to fall within two hours. Every time I've gone out this year it's rained on me. Luckily it didn't rain hard, and even luckier for my brother I made sure to have two rain ponchos. He only had a sub sandwich, a box of wine and his laptop. Yeah, his laptop.

The system below will be going in my jacket pocket when I go playing in the snow. It may seem bulky at first, but it's relatively small given its advantages. I'll be downsizing my neck kit that I posted earlier.

Everything written here about lighterd (fatwood) is true!

And the 'trick' birthday candles are a nice addition to that last kit.

I use (old-fashioned) paper egg cartons to make 'firestarter cupcakes',as my GrandKids call 'em.
To an empty egg carton,cut lid off & discard.To each of the 12 'egg spaces',add one PJ'd cotton ball,dryer lint if you saved some,some splinters & chips of lighterd,and a couple short pieces of jute hanging over the edge.Stick one longer splinter of lighterd up over the edge also.
Then melt paraffin in a double boiler-carefully! as paraffin is flammable!- until liquid; pour into each of the 12 spaces until the space is mostly full.
After these cool,cut out the 12 firestarters.
Before use,wrap the jute around the longest piece of lighterd (left sticking out) and light this as a wick.
The paraffin will saturate the egg carton paper (cardboard?!?) and these will be basically waterproof.
One of these,and 6 pieces of lighterd the size of pencils,will coax even damp kindling into a fire.
And most any method will light these...matches,ferro rod,lighter.

~Gnarly

I am browsing zippo.com website right now and see they have some interesting looking natural tinder - cedar pucks. http://www.zippo.com/Products/zippo-fire-starters.aspx (at the bottom of the page)
(I don't work for them, just wanted to share the find.)

I like it irecokn! I was adding a few thing for a trip today when the blower motor for our interior fan blew. We skipped the trip to make the repair and I've added belts and systems checks to our winter prep list for next year. If that fan had blow midway, I would have been happy to have your kit on-board. It's more compact than mine and looks just as efficient!