This last weekend went hiking a ways with the intention of practicing making a fire in less than ideal conditions. In the Columbia Gorge we just had a lot of rain, followed by a couple days of freezing temps. So everything was either frozen or still soaked through.

I've made some fires in better conditions, but holy moly if that was an actual fire making emergency and not a test, I'd be frozen. Tried using flint, pj cotton tinder, and just a mini mk-1 to split wood.

Long story short, beat the hell out of that knife while batonning through what I could to find dry wood. No luck. Tried a few times with different kindling types (mainly small stuff around the forest [wet], and fire trees [still wet]). Even blistered my thumb carving those trees.

The whole patience thing that everyone always says is vital. Just while practicing I was finding myself getting very frustrated. It takes practice to take the time to really set things up completely. Also learned that a saw or hatchet is really needed in order to split larger logs to find dry wood in wet areas.

And finally, flint is really the ONLY way to go. Bic's are worthless wet.

Jason